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A history of New Testament 
times 








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NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/historyofnewtestO0Ogibs_0O 


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Te CeO Rea DROOL 
Bible Text Series 

E. B. CHappett, D.D., Editor 


A HISTORY OF 
NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


BY 
GEORGE M. GIBSON, A.M., D.D. 





NASHVILLE, TENN. 
CoKESBURY PRESS 
1926 


CopyYRIGHT, 1926 
BY 


LAMAR & BARTON 


SSS eScsnsnaches 
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER! 

PAGE 

BACKGROUND OF JEWISH HISTORY.......+eesceee: / 
CHAPTER II 

THE SociAL LIFE OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE......... 25 


CHAPTER III 


RELIGIONS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE........00ee00:% 42 
CHAPTER IV 
JupaisM 1N NEw TESTAMENT TIMES..........-.. 57 
CHAPTER V 
More IMMEDIATE PREPARATION FOR THE BIRTH OF 
RIOT YA NUT yo is ce eT er plot uta le enc wa ehes a tete ate 74 
CHAR EERAV I 
Jesus’ PuBLIC MINISTRY.....++.+.seeeeeeeeeees 91 


CHAPTER VII 


Tue FALL OF THE JEWISH STATE AND THE BEGIN- 
NING OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.......-+...- 108 


V 





CONTENTS 





CHAPTER VIII 


PAUL’s CONVERSION AND EARLY MINISTRY........ 125 
CGHAPTERSTX 

PAULSTHE “GREAT, MISSTONARS a eee eee 144 
CHART ERE 

THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH AS AN ORGANIZATION ,.... 166 
GHAPAH Ral 

THE CHURCH IN PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT...... 182 


CHA Teli RASS 


DEVELOPMENT AND INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIAN LITER- 
ATURE ee ee AO ED ene ha ee 198 


CHAPTERS 
BACKGROUND OF JEWISH HISTORY 


In the year 722 B.C. Northern Israel was com- 
pletely subjugated by Assyria—her entire area being 
absorbed by that great empire—and the “Kingdom of 
Israel’ passed into history as “The Ten Lost Tribes.” 
All of the wealthy and aristocratic classes, along with 
any others who might be capable of making trouble, 
were deported and scattered throughout Mesopotamia 
and Media, and the depopulated areas of the land of 
Israel were reoccupied by people from northern Syria 
and Babylonia. Thus the national spirit was broken 
and the Lost Tribes were merged into the life of the 
other races that had crowded in upon them, and their 
identity completely disappeared—‘they dissolved like 
salt in water.” 


THE KiINGpoM oF JUDAH 


The stroke that so effectively destroyed the Northern 
Kingdom created a sense of uneasiness among the 
people of Judah that made their rulers studiously 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





watchful for measures and means that promised safety 
for their little kingdom. But despite certain im- 
portant moral and religious reforms effected by Heze- 
kiah and Josiah, and the wise counsel of the fervent 
Isaiah, whose career as a prophet covered forty years 
of this critical period, and who is regarded as “the 
greatest statesman of Hebrew history,” the ideas of 
the Babylonian religion filtered into Judea and spread 
among the people like wildfire. Thus partially losing 
their hold on Jehovah, the God of their fathers, their 
morals began to decay and they dropped back into 
the licentiousness that always goes with pagan faiths. 
The exalted idealism of their prophets, and even the 
idea of Jehovah himself, seemed for a time to be al- 
most lost in this abyss of heathenism. Left thus with- 
out vision or moral fiber, their subjugation was inevi- 
table, and in 586 _B.C., under Nebuchadrezzar’s com- 
mand, the Babylonian army besieged and took the 
sacred city and stripped it of everything of value. The 
walls of the city were demolished, the temple, the 
royal palace, and many of the private houses were 
burned and the entire population of the city was car- 
ried into exile. Only the people who lived in the vil- 
lages and country places—“the dregs as far as energy, 
wealth, and brains were concerned’”—were allowed to 
continue to occupy the land. 


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The people of Judah were now torn into three 
widely separated parts; the country people left in Pal- 
estine forming the largest of the fragments, the second 
largest being those who fled into Egypt some time after 
Nebuchadrezzar’s conquest; and, the smallest group, 
those who were carried as exiles and planted by the 
rivers of Babylon. In this last group were found the 
brains, the skill, and the culture of the Jewish race, 
and the ideas and ideals that were to determine their 
future history even to our own day were here culti- 
vated and developed. It is with this group therefore 
that the religious history of this nation is concerned. 


EFFECTS OF THE EXILE 


1. Those who were thus carried into exile were 
suddenly transplanted from a distant, isolated country 
to the center of a great world empire. In contrast to 
the simple and narrow interests of their former life 
they were now at the center of a new culture. A. 
great civilization that was eagerly engaged with a 
multitude of pursuits threw its fascination about them. 
They discovered that their conqueror was a great ad- 
ministrator, giving laws to many provinces, promoting 
an intelligent interest in agriculture and commerce, 
and thus making his government stable through the 
prosperity and loyalty of the people. They looked with 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





wonder upon great Babylon with her hanging gardens, 
her splendid palaces, her costly temples. These sym- 
bols of wealth and political power gave them a vision 
of new possibilities now open to them in commerce, 
in government, and in education, and brought about 
a permanent transformation in the Jewish attitude 
toward life. Instead of being absorbed, as heretofore, 
with purely local and provincial interests, the Hebrews 
henceforth became citizens of the world, and from 
that day on they have exercised an important influence 
on its commerce and have done much toward shaping 
its general history. 


THE RETURN TO JUDEA 


After the death of Nebuchadrezzar, Cyrus, who ap- 
pears in history as the king of a little province known 
as Anshan, with a marvelous stroke of genius quickly 
gained control of the Babylonian Empire and all of 
southwestern Asia, and became one of the great lead- 
ers and rulers of history. He was so magnanimous 
that he converted his foes into allies and won their 
complete confidence by showing the utmost respect 
and reverence for their religions. It was his policy 
to restore deported peoples to their native lands and 
give them liberty to adhere to their racial customs and 
religions, Hence, in 538 B.C. an edict was issued 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





granting the Jews immediate permission to return to 
the Holy Land and rebuild their sacred temple and city. 
Only a remnant availed themselves of this opportunity, 
and the record of their heroic efforts in rebuilding their 
wasted homeland is preserved for us in the books of 
Ezra and Nehemiah. 

The century that followed Nehemiah’s return was 
probably one of the happiest periods in the history of 
the Jewish people. While the colony very slowly grew 
in numbers, their borders were gradually extended, 
their people were comparatively prosperous, and all 
were quite secure in both their political and religious 
liberties. 


THE CONQUEST OF ALEXANDER 


1. Alexander, the Macedonian, in the year 334 B.C., 
suddenly startled the world with a series of brilliant 
victories that finally brought all of Asia Minor, Egypt, 
Assyria, and Babylon under his control. In ten short 
years he had asserted his authority over the entire 
world occupied by the Jewish people and then his 
marvelous career was suddenly brought to a close by 
his untimely death in 323 B.C. After his death there 
was bitter strife among the various Macedonian 
chiefs over the division of his empire, and Palestine 
became the occasion, by reason of her location, of a 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





standing quarrel between Egypt and Syria. Some- 
times she was under the control of one of these powers 
and again she was in the hands of the other. Finally, 
a hundred years after the death of Alexander, An- 
tiochus the Great settled the quarrel by a decisive vic- 
tory that permanently ended Egyptian control over 
Palestine, except for a brief period in the Middle 
Ages. 

2. The most tragic feature of this entire period of 
Grecian domination was the effort to Hellenize com- 
pletely the Jewish people. While Alexander showed 
them special consideration, remitting the tribute dur- 
ing the Sabbatic year and allowing them to live in 
harmony with their own laws and social customs, his 
general policy was to unite the peoples of his vast 
empire in a distinctly Greek civilization; and while 
his early death made it impossible for his policy to: be 
put into immediate effect, his successors inherited his 
idea and persistently sought to bind together the di- 
verse elements of the empire by means of a common 
culture. The spread of this culture was dependent 
primarily upon the general knowledge of the Greek 
language. In their language the Greeks had a peculiar 
and a commendable pride. It was a language of such 
precision and beauty that other tongues seemed crude 
and barbarous in comparison with it. It therefore 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





rapidly superseded the many other languages in use 
within the Empire and its cultural influence was most 
pronounced, New ideas from the golden period of 
Greek learning flowed in upon the people, reviving an 
interest in hitherto neglected questions of life and im- 
mensely expanding their views. While the uneducated 
clung to their original dialects, Greek became the 
language of government, of business, of literature, and 
of art. The Jews of the dispersion so generally 
adopted the use of this language in all of their inter- 


course that their sacred books were translated into 
Greek. 

3. The Greek love for amusements also formed a 
part of this Hellenizing process. To the Greek the 
main end of life was enjoyment. Sport and play had 
a large place in the life of the people and all sorts 
of amusements were provided for and encouraged. 
But there was something that appealed to the intellect 
in all of these recreations. Their games were mani- 
festations of skill, and literary and musical features 
always accompanied their festivals, while their best 
literature was directly associated with the theater. 
This presented such a contrast to the serious and pro- 
saic life the Jews had known in the land of their 
fathers that it gave peculiar charm to this new culture. 

4. But Hellenism carried with it most unhappy in- 

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fluences. The gymnasium elevated the athlete into a 
hero, licentiousness was often approved and cultivated, 
and in the whole social structure cleverness was com- 
mended rather than righteousness. Thus Hellenism 
so completely dominated the world that it almost 
proved fatal to the distinctive Jewish civilization. 
Long before the beginning of Roman supremacy this 
culture had made itself felt in distant Palestine, so 
that its educated classes became in large measure Hel- 
lenized. The young men of the more aristocratic fam- 
ilies felt strongly the pull toward the prevailing cul- 
ture through their desires for position and influence 
in the political life of the day. Instead of being 
hemmed in by the narrow life of barren Judea, they 
longed to be freed from those limiting practices that 
had stamped them as a “‘peculiar people’’ and to mingle 
without restraint in this new and fascinating civiliza- 
tion. All the paths of this new world seemed to the 
worldly-minded Jews to be paths of peace, but they 
failed to see that they were really leading toward the 
destruction of their own religion and of all that was 
most sacred in their civilization. 


THE PROTEST OF THE PIOUS 


This dangerous drift in Jewish life gave birth to 
the party known as the Pious or Godly that threw 
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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





itself vigorously into the work of counteracting the 
rapid tendency toward racial and religious disintegra- 
tion. This party was made up mostly from the poorer 
people who lived in the villages and country places 
rather than in Jerusalem. Its members asserted with 
growing firmness their adherence to their law and their 
devotion to all the customs of their fathers. 

When Antiochus Epiphanes became ruler he was 
bent on crushing this anti-Hellenistic party and there 
was finally attempted, for the first time in the history 
of the Greco-Roman world, a movement the special 
object of which was the destruction of a religion. All 
who clung to Judaism were marked as victims. Jew- 
ish worship and all Jewish rites were prohibited. Par- 
ticularly were the observance of the Sabbath and cir- 
cumcision designated as offenses to be punished with 
death. The same penalty was also to be visited upon 
all of those in whose possession a copy of the Law 
was found. Immediately an army of more than 20,000 
was sent into Judea to see that these orders were put 
into effect. Finally these troops entered Jerusalem, 
demolished its walls, stripped its temple, robbed and 
burned homes, and carried into slavery a multitude of 
women and children. Then in the place of the great 
altar of sacrifice to Israel’s God, an altar was built to 
the Olympian Zeus, and at this altar the Jews were 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





compelled to worship by offering swine’s flesh as sac- 
rifice. This setting up of the statue of Zeus in this 
holy place was what was referred to in Daniel as the 
“Abomination of Desolation.” This was the supreme 
test of the devotion of this long-suffering people to 
the religion of their fathers, and while the faith of 
many was so crushed under this savage treatment that 
they openly accepted the religion of their conqueror, 
there were others, the faithful remnant, who fled from 
these insults to their faith to hiding places in the caves 
of the wilderness. Like animals brought to bay, this 
sorely persecuted remnant were now ready to turn 
upon and rend their enemies. 


Tue MAcCABEAN REVOLT 


In the midst of these persecutions a royal officer 
came to the little town of Modein in the hills of Judea 
and commanded that all of the inhabitants attend a 
heathen sacrifice. Among those who assembled in 
answer to this summons was the aged priest, Matta- 
thias, with his five sons—John, Simon, Judas, Eleazer, 
and Jonathan. Mattathias, as the leading man in the 
town, was asked to offer the first sacrifice, with as- 
surance of much gold and the king’s favor if he would 
at once comply with the order. This offer he indig- 
nantly refused and when one of his fellow-townsmen 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





offered his service in performing the sacrifice the aged 
priest leaped upon him and slew him; then running 
his sword through the king’s officer and demolishing 
the altar, he called to the people of his own race: 
“Whosoever is zealous for the law and loyal to the 
covenant, let him follow me,” Thus the brave leader 
with his five sons and other daring men hastened to the 
wilderness and declared war to the death on their cruel 
enemies. Men of all classes, from desperadoes to 
those of the party of the “Pious,” gathered around 
this brave leader and marched with him through the 
country, destroying heathen altars, applying the sword 
to renegade Jews, compelling the circumcision of chil- 
dren, and thus openly defying the power of their hea- 
then oppressors. This aged priest soon died, suc- 
cumbing to the hardships of this guerrilla warfare, 
but his sons, who inherited both his courage and his 
capacity for leadership, carried on this aggressive op- 
position until a glorious victory was achieved. Their 
religion was saved and there was never afterward a 
question concerning the freedom of their faith. The 
conflict from this time on was for political rather than 

2. The Syrians withdrew their army, but only a 
little while elapsed before the conflict was renewed, 
the struggle now involving the appointment of the 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


high priest. The Syrian king appointed a certain Hel- 
lenist to this high office, but the people of Jerusalem 
refused to recognize him and thrust him out of the 
city. Ina short time a new Syrian army appeared and 
Judas, the Maccabean leader, was slain. This situa- 
tion brought to the leadership of the Jews, Simon, the 
last and the ablest of the sons of Mattathias. He 
quickly brought all available forces under his com- 
mand and his opposition appeared so formidable that 
the new Syrian king, Demetrius II, soon made up his 
mind that his safer course was to gain the friendship 
and support of this able leader. In order therefore to 
secure this support he made overtures and granted all 
concessions demanded—and thus “‘was the yoke of the 
heathen taken away from Israel.’’ All of the promises 
that had been made under Jonathan’s leadership were 
guaranteed and the payment of tribute to Syria was to 
cease immediately and for all time. Then the Jewish 
people made Simon both high priest and general, as 
they expressed it, “forever, until there should arise a 
faithful prophet.” 

3. This was the beginning of a new day in Jewish 
history, a period of peace and prosperity such as had 
hardly been surpassed. ‘Simon provided food for 
the cities and furnished them with the means of for- 
tification, and he strengthened all the distressed of his 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


people, he was full of zeal for the law, and every law- 
less and wicked person he banished. He made the 
sanctuary glorious, and multiplied the vessels of the 
temple.” (1 Macc. 148: 15.) 

This great and good ruler was finally put to death 
by his ambitious son-in-law and his third son, John 
Hyrcanus, seized the reins of government and laid 
claim to all of his father’s titles. Fired with great 
worldly ambitions, he gave himself to mere conquest. 
The marvelous religious zeal that had characterized 
the Maccabeans disappeared and in its place there came 
worldliness and greed for power. This course alarmed 
those who gave first place in their thought to their 
religion and drew them into closer and more effective 
union, 

RISE OF THE PHARISAIC PARTY 

In the days when Jonathan was in authority there 
had grown up a party of the more pious who pro- 
tested against all state measures that did not directly 
contribute to the promotion of their religion. Pro- 
voked by the ambitious schemes of John, these “‘sep- 
aratists,’ known as “Pharisees,” now became active 
as opponents of all such worldly plans, while those who 
were in sympathy with the policies of the ruling house 
became a party known as Sadducees. Just as the ri- 
valry between these two parties was becoming sharp, 


19 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


John’s life came to its close and the reins of govern- 
ment passed into the hands of his incapable children, 
who finally wrecked the Jewish nation. It was at this 
critical period in Jewish history that the strong hand 
of Rome was laid upon her and her political inde- 
pendence passed forever into history. 


RoMAN SWAy 


1. By a remarkable series of victories Pompey had 
quickly brought under his control the whole of Italy, 
northern Africa, and Greece, and as early as 69 B.C. 
had conquered Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, and the king- 
dom of the Seleucids. Pompey was thus recognized as 
king of kings. As Palestine would serve as a con- 
venient base of operations in his further ambitious 
schemes, his covetous eyes fell on this region and in 
63 B.C. Rome, “through a sea of blood,” entered 
Jerusalem and for seven centuries following held the 
Jewish nation within her iron grasp. 

2. As the first Christian century opens we find 
Palestine divided into three provinces, Judea, Galilee, 
and Perea, Samaria, because of its mongrel popula- 
tion, was not now considered Jewish territory. While 
the three Jewish provinces just mentioned were not 
inhabited wholly by people of Jewish blood, the Jews 
were so far in the ascendancy that the whole social and 


20 


a nner reese as, 
A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





religious life was essentially Jewish. Judea was the 
largest and most important of the three provinces, and 
her name came to designate the entire national area. 
All Jews felt that her soil was a sort of common herit- 
age, especially in view of the fact that Jerusalem was 
located within her borders. This sacred city that had 
exercised such a peculiar power over the minds of the 
Hebrews during all of the dreary period of their polit- 
ical bondage, now became the focus of all of their 
political and religious thinking. Over the province of 
Judea Roman procurators were in authority, but they 
judged Jews strictly according to Jewish law. In fact, 
the Roman administration affected Jewish society very 
little. While all Jews were required to take the oath 
of allegiance to the emperor and while the procurator 
kept in his possession the robe of the high priest, these 
requirements were fully offset by the large religious 
liberty given the Jews, by protection guaranteed their 
temple, and by the general tolerance and regard shown 
their pronounced religious feelings. In most local mat- 
ters the Jews were left to govern themselves. Their 
Sanhedrin was the “supreme court for all cases of im- 
portance—civil, criminal, and religious.” However, in 
many things their liberties and welfare varied accord- 
ing to the character of the emperor and his subordi- 
nates who were immediately over them. 


21 


EEE aaa 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 

See Peer NR Mm Me Neu AS MSc 

3. Altogether independent of the procurators were 
the tetrarchies over which the two sons of Herod were 
placed. The important one of these tetrarchies, and 
the only one with which our study is immediately con- 
cerned, was that of- Galilee and Perea over which 
Herod Antipas ruled. This section of Palestine was 
inhabited by both Jews and Gentiles, but the Jews so 
predominated that the whole population was most 
punctual in the observance of Jewish feasts and Sab- 
baths. However, they were in such close contact with 
the Greco-Roman civilization that they were much 
broader and freer in their thought and mode of life 
than were the people of Judea proper. The character 
of their ruler, Herod Antipas, is most suggestively ex- 
pressed in the word Jesus used to designate him—“that 
fox.” To offset his ardent friendship for Rome and 
heathen customs, he attended Jewish feasts in Jeru- 
salem and assumed an air of interest in the Jewish re- 
ligion. He was, however, a man of uncommon ability 
as aruler. Like his father he was a great builder and 
adorned his tetrarchy with splendid cities. 


THE DISPERSION 
1. As has already been suggested, it was a remnant 
of the Jewish people that came back to the Holy Land 


after the Babylonish captivity, the majority having 
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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





scattered over the world at large, so that by the time of 
the reign of Augustus every city in the Roman Empire 
had a large Jewish element, set off in a distinct 
Jewish quarter. These Jews of the “Dispersion” were 
commonly designated by those living in Judea as “Gre- 
cians.” Nevertheless, in all of these foreign countries 
where they were settled they were as loyal to Judaism 
as were their brethren of Palestine, and regularly 
made their contributions to the maintenance of the 
temple. In their various communities they had their 
synagogues, their laws, their rabbis, and in Alexan- 
dria their temple. Wherever a Jew prayed he turned 
his face toward Jerusalem, and every one hoped that 
sometime he would have the high privilege of attend- 
ing the Passover in that Holy City. 

Thus through storm and stress, through bondage 
and oppression, through dissensions and bitter strife 
within their own ranks, we find the Jewish people at 
the beginning of the first Christian century retaining 
all of their distinctive national and religious character- 
istics, and possessed of an intensity of religious faith 
and expectancy that set them apart as “a peculiar peo- 
ple.’ Out of the furnace of affliction through which 
foreign nations, reeking with immorality, had com- 
pelled them to pass, it is not to be wondered at that 
they had such strong racial antipathy, and that, in the 

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light of their exalted monotheism and their higher 
ethical standards, they had such poignant contempt for 
all the heathen religions about them. 


QUESTIONS 


(These questions are designed simply as suggestions and 
aids to thought.) 


1. What were some of the more pronounced effects of the 
Exile on the Jewish people? 

2. After Alexander’s conquest what was his main policy 
with regard to all of his subject people? 

3. What was the effect of the Grecian culture on the 
Jewish people? 

4. How were they saved from national and religious dis- 
integration under the influence of this culture? 

5. What was the general effect of the Maccabean Revolt? 

6. What was the attitude of Rome toward the Jewish re- 
ligion? 

7. What difference is seen in the intellectual and religious 
life of the Jews of the Dispersion as compared with those who 
returned to the Holy Land? 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Matuews, History of New Testament Times in Palestine. 
Guiover, The Conflict of Religions in the Roman Empire. 
Funk and WaGNaALLs, A New Standard Dictionary. 


CHAPTERS 
THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE 


WHILE, as we have already seen, Palestine was at 
the time of our present study settled both by Jews and 
the representatives of other races, the Jews constituted 
the larger part of the population and were socially the 
dominant race. It is, however, impossible to make an 
accurate estimate of the number of either Jews or 
foreigners at this time inhabiting the Holy Land. 
Some of the best authorities think there were never 
more than three million people at one time occupying 
the country west of the Jordan. There were many 
towns scattered over the country, but they were small, 
and Jerusalem itself, it is thought, could hardly have 
accommodated within its walls more than a hundred 
thousand souls. Palestine was not only a country of 
very limited area, but its capacity was further re- 
stricted by the fact that much of it was either so arid 
or so broken and rugged that it was neither inhabited 
nor cultivated. In such a land it would have been im- 
possible for a large mass of people devoted to agricul- 
tural and pastoral pursuits to maintain themselves; 


BS 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





hence the excessive figures given by Josephus, and by 
later historians who relied on him for their informa- 
tion, are no longer taken as trustworthy. 


EFFECT OF GEOGRAPHICAL LIMITATIONS 


1. That a people so weak numerically, and located 
within such restricted territory, should have made so 
large a contribution to the history of the world is in- 
dicative of their peculiar racial hardihood and especial- 
ly of their religious genius. And it is worthy of note 
that their geographical limitations and the natural 
peculiarities of their country had no little to do in de- 
termining their character and their social spirit. There 
was no land over which the great forces of history so 
frequently swept and that “was yet capable of preserv- 
ing one tribe in national continuity and growth; one 
tribe learning and suffering and rising superior to the 
successive problems these forces presented to her, till 
upon the opportunity offered by the last of them, she 
launched with her results upon the world.” These 
people, distinguished for their religious temperament, 
were settled in this little country near to and yet aloof 
from the main currents of human life, and at the same 
time were so located that they became the spectators 
of history’s movements without becoming their vic- 
tims, and they gathered within their own life all the 

26 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





best experiences of that ancient world and transmitted 
them to the generations that followed. Their country 
was separated from Asia by the broad and forbidding 
desert and was thus saved from becoming, either in 
its religion or in its politics, a purely Eastern country. 
Separated also by a strip of desert from Egypt, it was 
protected from the immorality and the crass idolatry 
that characterized that land, while the ‘Great Sea’ 
completely shut it in on the west. And yet the great 
nations, contending for world-supremacy, again and 
again invaded this sacred territory and fought for 
dominion over it. Through all of these inroads of 
other nations, the Jew, in spite of his isolation, had the 
cultural advantage of contact with all of the leading 
races of the world as he contended with them to the 
death for the things he held most dear. 

2. The very effort required to resist these invasions 
and to surmount physical limitations developed and 
made conspicuous the unique moral force that char- 
acterized the Jew and made him so tenacious of his 
creed and so resolute in his devotion to his religion. 
A survey of this historic country, including its soil, 
its climate, and the general domestic and social life 
of the people, is important to the Bible student in in- 
terpreting Jewish life. 

3. Within the compass of this little country there 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





are great contrasts of temperature, not only between 
different parts of the country, but also between sum- 
mer and winter and between day and night. While 
the upland regions have a pleasant temperature during 
the summer, in the lowlands the heat is often most ex- 
treme. But taking it throughout the year, it is a most 
equable climate, and there are few healthier regions 
in all the world. It is claimed that a climate like that 
of the Holy Land “lends itself to the service of moral 
ideals.” With its irregular rains and uncertain seasons 
the imagination stirs the soul to the realization of a 
Will behind nature upon whose benevolence man is 
entirely dependent for fruitful seasons and life-sustain- 
ing harvests. Thus the Spirit so used their climate as 
to make it a means of revealing the doctrine of a gra- 
cious providence, a doctrine that was deeply imbedded 
in the heart of this people during the period we are 
studying. 

4. The majority of the people lived in villages, of 
which there were many scattered over the land; and as 
they were an agricultural and pastoral people they 
went forth each day to cultivate their fields and care 
for their flocks. As the plateaus and valleys were 
quite fertile, orchards and vineyards everywhere flour- 
ished and there were rich harvests of grain. While 
this village life narrowed their horizon and fostered a 

28 


rn IEE 
A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





provincial spirit, at the same time it gave opportunity 
for the cultivation of a beautiful family and com- 
munity life, for learning the great lessons nature so 
richly offered, and for the development of the religious 
sense through communion with God. 

5. Cities like Jerusalem, Tiberias, and Czsarea 
presented a sharp contrast to the small towns and vil- 
lages. The splendid public buildings erected by the 
Herods and the Greek rulers at once caught the eye 
as they towered above the flat houses of the populace 
in the cities, while the villages were without public 
_ buildings, except synagogues, and their houses were 
mostly mean and unattractive. The walls were built 
of mud mixed with straw and baked in the sun. They 
had low flat roofs and a general appearance of primi- 
tive simplicity. Streets were narrow and badly kept, 
water was carried from distant springs or aqueducts, 
and there was the entire absence of any sort of sanitary 
arrangements, 


THe FAMILY 


1. The Jewish family is a most interesting study. 
From the days of Abraham the family as the unit of 
society had been emphasized and the careful instruction 
of children was regarded as the highest and most 
sacred duty. The family at the opening of the first 

29 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





century was in the main monogamous, but polygamy 
seems to have been practiced to some extent during the 
New Testament period, being confined, however, to 
the wealthier class. While woman occupied a higher 
position in Jewish society than she did among other 
races, she was by no means accorded equal honor and 
like privileges with man. Indeed she was not given 
all the rights that belonged to certain classes of women 
in Roman society. She was not accorded the same 
educational opportunities as were provided for men 
and was always regarded as an essentially inferior sex. 
She was, however, allowed to go abroad freely and 
was not, as a rule, compelled to be entirely veiled. 

2. According to rabbinical opinion woman’s inferi- 
ority was due to the part she played in the Fall of 
the race. A number of miseries are catalogued by 
them as having thus been visited upon woman: “The 
covering of her head like one in mourning, the wear- 
ing of her hair long like Lilith, the boring of her ear 
like a slave, serving her husband like a maid-servant, 
and not being permitted to testify in court.’ How- 
ever, the rabbis most heartily commended marriage 
and delighted in the praise of good and faithful wives. 
But to their way of thinking woman’s world was to 
be strictly domestic—baking, washing, nursing chil- 
dren, and spinning and weaving. The perfect wife was 


30 


LLL a 
A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


ce 
the hard-working, good housekeeper described in the 
book of Proverbs. 

3. Betrothal was the first step in the formation of 
the marriage relation and was given a prominent place 
in the social life of the Jewish people. It indeed had 
the significance of an incomplete marriage. The terms 
of the betrothal were made either by the head of the 
house of the bridegroom, or by a friend who was 
authorized to represent him, and involved a real sale 
and purchase. The bride was given a piece of money 
and a legal document which contained certain pledges 
upon the part of the future husband. Then the so- 
called dowry was agreed upon and the payment, or 
part payment, of the same was made. While this 
dowry was regarded as the purchase-price of the bride, 
a sort of compensation to the family for the loss of 
a valuable member, it was nevertheless to be conserved 
as capital for the future benefit of the wife, and upon 
the death of the husband, or in the event of arbi- 
trary divorce, it would serve a most useful purpose 
in meeting her needs. 

4. After this financial phase of the betrothal was 
satisfactorily adjusted a public announcement was made 
by the prospective bridegroom, or by some one who rep- 
resented him, that the betrothal had been consum- 
mated, and after this the two, if they so elected, could 

31 


ee  ——————EeeeEe=EeEeeee 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 
TSS ESS SNe TNS SSE CS 
live together as man and wife; and children that were 
born from a union thus effected were regarded by 
society as legitimate. Usually, however, the betrothal 
was followed after some time—often after the lapse of 
years, since young children and even infants were fre- 
quently betrothed—by an elaborate wedding occasion. 
In the later period of Jewish life there was a growing 
tendency to make a sharp distinction between the be- 
trothal and the marriage, and to magnify the latter 
by investing it with the atmosphere of publicity and 
pomp. In the marriage proper, as we see it in the 
Bible, two features are conspicuous—the procession 
and the feast. These two features stand out in some 
of the parables of Jesus. In the procession the bride- 
groom and his friends marched to the home of the 
bride and then the festal party, increased by the friends 
of the bride, conducted the happy couple to their future 
home. There were high spirits and much color in 
this picturesque drama, as can be seen in both the Old 
and the New Testaments. The festivities frequently 
lasted for several days and the friends and guests gave 
vent to their jubilant feelings in song and dance, and 
often in boisterous hilarity. The marriage supper, 
which was given at the house of the husband, was the 
outstanding social event in the life of the family. At 
the close of the feast the bride was conducted to the 
32 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 
ep ne recent a DO eee ae ee eee ae ee 
nuptial chamber by her parents. It is worth noting, 
as an explanation of how Laban’s deception was suc- 
cessfully practiced on Jacob, that throughout this entire 
festal occasion the bride had to remain heavily veiled. 

5. Divorce, in the early period of Jewish history, 
was quite easy for the man to obtain, about the only 
restriction thrown about him being the requirement 
that he must give his wife a “writing of divorcement” 
if he should wish to set her aside. This traditional 
prerogative held sway until a late period in Jewish life, 
when the protests of prophets and the legislation en- 
acted through their influence in some degree checked 
the wrong social drift. Finally the higher conceptions 
of the wife’s position and rights and of the sacredness 
of the marriage bond flowered into the perfect ethical 
conceptions of the Gospels. However, in New Testa- 
ment times, in spite of prophetic protests that faintly 
echoed from a distant past, divorce was regarded as 
respectable and was quite common through the in- 
fluence, no doubt, of the pagan life about them. Its 
privileges were mainly restricted to the husband, al- 
though there were exceptional cases in which the 
woman took the initiative. 

6. Jewish parents considered children a great bless- 
ing. This was due not only to the need for their labor 
in tilling the soil and for their service in case of war, 

a 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





but more especially to that normal social ideal that 
made strong the parental instinct. Hannah’s deep 
longing for a son was the expression of a racial at- 
titude toward children. The father was supreme over 
his children, having the power of life and death. The 
utmost respect and obedience were exacted toward both 
father and mother and the strictest domestic discipline 
prevailed. The long period of suckling—from two to 
three years—made very intimate and strong the bond 
between mother and child. The religious instruction 
enjoined in Exodus and Deuteronomy was probably 
given in the main by the mother, but such emphasis 
was given it that we may believe the father supple- 
mented the mother’s work at every possible oppor- 
tunity. From the days of Abraham on down into the 
Christian era the Jewish family was essentially a reli- 
gious institution. It was a little “society bound to- 
gether by common religious observances,” and existing 
for the purpose of keeping alive and making effective 
certain great religious ideals. In Deuteronomy we 
have it proclaimed as a law: “And thou shalt teach 
them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of 
them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou 
walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and 
when thou risest up.” According to this command- 
ment the home was to be so charged with the spirit 
34 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 
ea a Ene CY 
and truths of religion that the child could not escape 
them, and this law was no doubt recognized and in 
operation in Jewish homes from the earliest days of 
their history. The reason given for God’s selection 
of Abraham as the founder of the chosen people was 
that he had in him the elements of a great father, a 
commanding teacher of religion: “I know him that 
he will command his household after him.” The three 
hundred and eighteen “trained men” who went forth 
with him to battle after having been educated and dis- 
ciplined “in his house,” and no doubt directly under 
his supervision and discipline, give evidence of the 
importance of the home as the center of moral and re- 
ligious training. And reading between the lines the 
story of Samuel’s early training, what a vision we get 
of religious instruction and discipline at the home 
altar!’ What a conception Hannah must have had of 
the solemn duties and infinite potentialities involved in 
the moral and religious education of the home! A 
similar view of the educational and religious function 
of the home seems to have been commonly accepted by 
the Jewish people. 


ScHOOLS 


1. In addition to this careful home instruction there 
were also community schools established and main- 


35 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





tained for the one purpose of supplementing the reli- 
gious instruction given in the home. Josephus and 
other early Jewish writers give us unmistakable evi- 
dence of the existence from a very early date of a sys- 
tem of schools for the instruction of the young in the 
law and religion of the Hebrews, and these schools 
were everywhere an essential feature of the Jewish 
community at the beginning of the Christian era. For 
pupils from five to ten years of age the Bible text only 
was used in these schools. From ten to fifteen years 
of age the studies also included the Hebrew traditions. 
Beyond that age the youth could take part in the end- 
less discussions of the rabbis over the details of their 
traditional system. These elementary schools were held 
daily, except on the Sabbath, while the sessions of the 
synagogue schools were held on Monday and Thursday 
in addition to the Sabbath session. These schools were 
under the supervision of the rabbis who whispered 
into the ears of those who assisted them the answers 
to be given to important questions. The manner of 
giving instruction was mainly catechetical and pupils 
were encouraged in asking questions and thus think- 
ing for themselves. The work attempted in these 
schools was so thorough that Josephus says, “If any 
one of us should be questioned concerning the laws, he 
would more easily repeat all than his own name.” 


36 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





2. These schools were recognized as a vital feature 
of the religious system and national life of the 
Hebrews. This is evident from a number of pro- 
verbial sayings that have come down from those days. 
Thus for example: “The world continues to exist only 
by the breath of the children of the schools.” ‘The 
children must not be detained from the schools, even 
though it were to help rebuild the temple.” “If you 
would destroy the Jews, you must destroy their 
schools.” “He who refuses a pupil one lesson has, as 
it were, robbed him of his parental inheritance.” 


OccuPATIONS 


1. The stories in the Old Testament that give pic- 
tures of a primitive industrial period are not to be 
taken as characterizing the more advanced civiliza- 
tion of the New Testament period. Outside of the 
large cities the people were mostly engaged in agri- 
cultural and pastoral employment. They were ac- 
quainted with many of the best methods of agriculture 
known at that period, and their well-cultivated vine- 
yards, grain fields, olive groves, and fruit orchards 
were seen in all parts of their country. Their harvests, 
beginning about the middle of April, were finished 
within two months, and the harvest seasons originated 

37 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





and gave significance to their great religious feasts— 
the Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. 

2. In New Testament times there was a slowly 
developing commercial life, and while it was mainly 
carried on by the Greek part of the population, still an 
increasing number of the Jews were drawn into this 
more profitable employment. This entrance of the 
Jewish people into the commercial struggle was the 
cause of deep sorrow to the rabbis and led the great 
Hillel to declare, ““He who engages in business cannot 
become a sage.” They exported certain products— 
balsam, figs, olive oil, salt, etc—and there were many 
fancy food products and articles of dress and general 
luxury that were imported. The fish trade from the 
Sea of Galilee was quite extensive and other commercial 
enterprises existed. 

3. Manual trades were considered quite honorable 
pursuits and it was regarded as the duty of the parent. 
to have the son educated in one of these occupations. 
It was claimed that every rabbi had his trade, a claim 
that throws light on Paul’s having the humble trade of 
tent-making. Such a variety of trades are mentioned 
in Jewish literature as to indicate a rather highly de- 
veloped industrial life; and the workers in some of 
these industries had found it necessary to organize 

38 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





themselves somewhat after the manner of our modern 
trades-unions. 

4. The Jews were also well represented in the pro- 
fessions. There were two classes of lawyers, those 
who practiced only in Jewish courts and those who 
confined their practice to Roman courts. As there was 
great fear of defilement from touching a dead body it 
is probable that medical knowledge was scant among 
the Jews, but there were notwithstanding a great many 
Jews in the medical profession. At its best, however, 
medical knowledge at the beginning of the Christian 
period was crude and almost wholly unscientific. As 
evil spirits were generally believed to be the cause of 
disease, it was natural and logical to resort to charms 
and exorcisms to get rid of sickness. 

5. The arts among the Jews received scant atten- 
tion. A grossly literal interpretation of the Decalogue 
created an intense religious prejudice against the 
making of graven images, and all forms or representa- 
tions of living creatures were considered violations of 
the law. Hence, there is nothing to indicate any spe- 
cial development in architecture, sculpture, or painting 
in any of the discovered ruins of Palestine. Consider- 
able attention, however, was given to music and it 
was developed to a high degree of perfection. 


39 


ene 
A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


i 


POLITICAL LIFE 


As has already been shown, the Jewish people were 
accorded large political freedom and were allowed al- 
most complete management of their own affairs. The 
theocratic idea of government so colored and deter- 
mined all of their thinking that they made no distinc- 
tion between their political and religious life. Hence, 
all governmental affairs were carried on through ec- 
clesiastical organizations. Back in the days of their 
kings they regarded them as having been divinely 
chosen and appointed; and in New Testament times, 
when they had no king of their own choosing, the high 
priest was the supreme head of their local government. 
Thus their religion and their politics were affectively 
blended. 


QUESTIONS 


1. What were the peculiar physical limitations on the life 
of the Jewish people and what were their effects on the char- 
acter and life of these people? 

2. What is the significance of the family in the life of a 
people? 

3. What were the striking features in the family life of 
the ancient Jewish people? 

4. What part does the school have in molding the life of a 
nation? 

5. What provision did the Jews make for the education of 
their children? 


40 


————————— eee 
A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 
(i Le RRS RR ES CARE O Pc en y e Be, We ae 
6. What place did religion have in the work of these 
schools ? 
7. What effect do the occupations of a people have on 
their life in general? 
8. How far can you trace the effect of the daily work of 
life on the thinking and the character of the Jews? 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


SMITH, Historical Geography of the Holy Land. 
MatTHeEws, History of New Testament Times in Palestine. 
PEAKE, Brotherhood in the Old Testament. 


41 


CHAPTERS 
RELIGIONS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 


THE murder of Julius Cesar in the year 44 B.C. 
left the Roman world without a controlling mind, and 
as a result disorder that was almost anarchy reigned 
throughout the Empire. Rome’s enemies swept 
down upon her borders, while among her own people 
were petty factional fights, bloody massacres, and fre- 
quent robbery. Indeed conditions were so bad as to 
lead one of her great moralists to say: “Right and 
wrong are confounded; so many wars the world over, 
so many forms of wrong; no worthy honor is left to 
the plow; the husbandmen are marched away and the 
fields grow dirty; the hook has its curve straightened 
into the sword-blade.” The absence of a strong per- 
sonality in control of the government had given the 
occasion for the discovery of the absence of all moral 
standards among the people and the entire lack of 
moral self-restraint. Notwithstanding the marvelous 
extension of the Roman government and the growth 
of her political power, the character of the people of 
this vast empire had been declining for a hundred years 

42 


ee 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 

$$ eee 
and a slow but continuous process of disintegration had 
been gradually undermining the State. The sacred- 
ness of life and property was almost wholly disre- 
garded and murder was employed as a chief means of 
political success. Civil war again and again swept 
over the State. 


A Deep SENSE OF THE NEED oF RELIGION 


1, These were the unhappy conditions obtaining 
when Augustus Czesar became emperor of Rome. On 
every hand the main question that was engaging the 
minds of thoughtful people was: What is the root of all 
this evil? What is the disease that is eating into the 
vitals of the Empire? Why is it that the patriotism 
and honesty that characterized the people in olden days 
are wanting, and that such degeneracy and immorality 
are everywhere prevalent? These were the anxious 
questions engaging the minds of patriots, statesmen, 
poets, and moralists. It was not long till the answer 
to these questions seemed to be at hand: history began 
to assist them in finding the reason for this moral de- 
cline. A Greek thinker two hundred years before, in 
contrasting the Greek and Roman civilizations as they 
then were, said: ‘The most important difference for 
the better which the Roman Commonwealth appears to 
me to display is in their religious beliefs, for I conceive 

43 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





that what in other nations is looked upon as a reproach, 
I mean a scrupulous fear of the gods, is the very thing 
which keeps the Roman Commonwealth together.” 
Thus through the light of history their thinkers began 
to discover their corruption of morals, and general dis- 
regard for law and order had grown out of a fading 
interest in religion, and a loss of faith in the gods. 
The fear of the gods, although created and cultivated 
by a false religion, was indispensable, so these men 
gradually discovered, as a means of deterring the 
masses from lawlessness and immorality. This view of 
the value of religion to the State was an old one among 
the Greeks, and now in the midst of their lawless so- 
cial condition the strong men of Rome began to see 
that what they needed was the reawakening of the 
religious sense of their people by the restoration of 
faith in the gods. 

2. Augustus, soon after he came to the throne, saw 
clearly the danger to the State of this abounding law- 
lessness and lust, and set himself the task of discover- 
ing the most effective means of counteracting it. He 
was soon led to a profound belief in the general value 
of religion to the State, especially as a means of pre- 
venting crime and disorder. The nature of the gods 
that were worshiped and the general principles of the 
religion were not matters of concern to him; so he be- 


44 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





came hospitable to almost every form of religion and 
gave to all of them his energetic support. To the 
mind of the Emperor, and to the leading thinkers of 
his reign, the dependableness of the individual citi- 
zen and the integrity of the State were vitally related 
to the restraints and standards of religion. It was thus 
a deep conviction that led Augustus to give his personal 
and official support to the establishment in the Empire 
of the more popular religions of his day. In his auto- 
biographical sketch he mentions the temples he built for 
the worship of the various gods of his day—temples 
to Apollo, to Quirinus, to Jupiter Feretrius, to Jove the 
Thunderer, to the Lares, to the Penates, to Youth, to 
the Great Mother. He also records how he dedicated 
vast sums to religion and how he restored the despoiled 
temples of Asia. We are also told of his “increasing 
the numbers, dignity, and allowances of the priests,” of 
his restoration of ancient ceremonies, of his celebra- 
tion of festivals and holy days. 

3. As the Emperor was ably supported in his views 
of the value of religion to the State by many of the 
intellectuals of his day, the report of the multiplicity 
of the gods throughout the Roman Empire and of the 
general devotion of the people to cult and ritual is 
easily credible. No one without careful study can 
realize “how crowded the whole life was with cult, 


45 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





ritual, and usage; how full of divinations, petty, pleas- 
ing, or terrible.” ‘When,” asks Augustine, ‘can I 
ever mention in one passage of this book all the names 
of gods and goddesses, which they have scarcely been 
able to compass in great volumes, seeing that they allot 
to every individual thing the special function of some 
divinity?’ Every spring, well and tree came to be 
regarded as a temple of a god, so that the whole coun- 
tryside was alive with gods; and still closer to the peo- 
ple were the Lares—household gods—for which there 
was a little shrine on every hearth. To the minds of 
these people the whole expanse of nature was teeming 
with mysterious invisible beings. 


SUPERSTITION AND MorRAL DECAY 


Whatever advantages these multiplied gods and 
forms of religion may have lent the Emperor in carry- 
ing out reforms and establishing his authority through- 
out his vast Empire, it is not surprising that super- 
stitions so gross should lead to belief in magic, in 
enchantment, in astrology, in witchcraft; and such 
faith inevitably hurried the people to deeper moral de- 
cay as men became less capable of thought and less dis- 
posed to think. Hence, we see here in Rome a polit- 
ical life which after passing through a long process of 
development is now disintegrating and decaying in 


46 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





spite of the Emperor’s vigorous efforts to save it 
through faith in false gods and by means of religions 
that are nothing more than superstitions. 

4. Emperor-worship was encouraged by the ruling 
class to meet certain political needs. It was important, 
they thought, to develop in the mind of the people the 
sense of the political unity of the Empire, and this 
unity of course centered in the person of the Emperor 
himself. Hence the ancient idea, that had its roots far 
back in Oriental life, of recognizing the ruler as divine 
and as therefore due the worship of all his subjects, 
was revived and emphasized. Julius Caesar was de- 
clared to be “The God and Dictator and Saviour of 
all the World,” and succeeding rulers were paid similar 
homage. 

Since the character of the gods men worship vitally 
influences their conduct, the dissolute lives that char- 
acterized most of these Emperors must have contrib- 
uted very powerfully toward the downward moral 
trend of the people at large. 

5. The Mystery Religions were popular through- 
out the Empire and exerted a far-reaching influence, 
since they came more nearly than any other of the 
pagan religions to meeting the deeper longing of the 
heart. The emphasis of these religions was on the 
idea of help from without for the struggling individ- 

47 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





ual, and the possibility of his coming into touch with 
saving power beyond himself. They had varied mystic 
rites through which they claimed that they came into 
communion with the gods, and through these cere- 
monials a very powerful appeal was made to the emo- 
tions. As these mysteries had their origin back in the 
primitive age of man, they were a strange medley of 
sensuality and of the finest idealism of Greek culture. 
While they often appealed to the baser passions, they 
also held out the idea of high fellowship with both the 
gods and man. Hence Cicero said of them: “In the 
mysteries we perceive the principles of real life and 
learn not only to live happily, but we die with a fairer 
hope.” 
GREEK PHILOSOPHIES 

Greek philosophy also made a notable contribution 
to the religious ideas current at the opening of the 
first Christian century. This is especially seen in 
the doctrines and influence of the Stoics and the 
Epicureans, 

1. The Stoics—These were men of exceptional in- 
dependence and elevation of thought. To them the 
essential thing in religion was some form of direct 
communion with the divine, the establishment of a 
real union between the worshiper and a holier and 
more powerful being. And this implied a divinity of 

48 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





a higher order and a wider range of activity than those 
of the gods of the current superstitions. They seem 
never to have agreed on any very definite conception 
of this “divinity,” or “providence,” that ruled in the 
affairs of men, but contented themselves with a merely 
vague feeling that there was something other and 
higher than man “that shapes our ends,” and this feel- 
ing was often expressed in purely pantheistic terms. 
Matter, force, mind, man, deity were all united in their 
thinking, matter and force being the two ultimate 
principles, while the term ‘‘deity” stood for the working 
force in the universe. Some of them, however, so ideal- 
ized Jupiter that he embodied to a considerable degree 
the monotheistic idea and thus became the center of a 
religion of a much higher character and with a much 
more inspiring appeal than the common faith and prac- 
tice of the people. 

2. There were distinguished poets and philosophers 
who gave themselves to the exposition and glorifica- 
tion of this form of religion. “Jupiter,” they said, “is 
all that you see and all that lives within you.” “There 
is a providence,” they insisted, “that rules human and 
all other affairs; nothing happens that is not appointed ; 
and to this providence every man is related.” As for 
the individual they said, “The god has put in his pos- 
session the best thing of all, the master thing,” which 

49 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


they called the “rational faculty,” and by means of 
this faculty they thought man can always live in con- 
formity with nature. Thus living in harmony with 
nature he fulfills the true end of his life and has perfect 
happiness. Every one therefore must yield himself to 
this inward power and let it determine his conduct, and 
in so doing nothing could harm him. If, however, this 
should fail in one’s life to result happily, and he can 
no longer endure his existence, let him at once end it. 

3. This religion led to frequent self-examination 
and to most severe self-discipline. Seneca, one of its 
leading exponents, said, “This is the one goal of my 
days and of my nights: this is my task, my thought—to 
put an end to my old faults”; and this was possibly 
characteristic of the men generally who belonged to 
his school of thought. It is said of Seneca that he 
never tried to deceive himself concerning the extreme 
difficulties of his ideals, and never attempted to fool 
himself about things that he could not believe, and 
while he was a man with a tender, pure, true heart, it is 
thought he never reached that inner peace that he 
thought his religion offered. However, there were ex- 
periences in his life in which he appeared to be so 
much under the Spirit’s influence that he became al- 
most prophetic in his conceptions of God. In one of 
these moods we hear him saying, “God is near you, 


50 


Se tearae  e 
A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 
OSs Sant lS Sa TS SS RIDE Cece SATE CS, 
with you, within you. . . . . None is a good man 

without God.” 

4. It is obvious that Stoicism was too much a mat- 
ter of intellect and reason to take hold of the masses of 
the people. The individual was isolated from his fel- 
lows and from God and was made to think solely of 
his self-sufficiency: “You must exercise the will and 
the thing is done, it is set right.” ‘Make yourself 
happy.’ Of course prayer would have no place in 
such a view of life. To the common herd, therefore, 
with their limited self-control and their incapacity for 
deep introspection and prolonged concentration, this 
religion could make only a mocking appeal. 

Furthermore, in their efforts at suppression they de- 
stroyed some of the finer qualities of life, qualities that 
are vital to any form of happy social life. Their doc- 
trine required that the affections be suppressed, that the 
holy instinct of conjugal and parental love be “brought 
to the test of reason.” The emotions of friendship, 
pity, and sympathy were to be so constantly restrained 
and negatived that these fine qualities of the soul would 
be weakened, if not destroyed. Thus instead of pre- 
paring men for entering into life’s social relationships 
and living harmoniously and helpfully with their fel- 
low men, Stoicism had a tendency to disqualify them 
for the more intimate social fellowships. 


51 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





5. Stoicism failed altogether to take into account 
that moral impotency in human life that led Paul to 
cry out: “For not what I would, that do I practice; 
but what I hate, that do I.” It therefore made no pro- 
vision for men with broken wills and carried no hope 
for men with enslaved lives. Hence Stoicism put no 
check on general wrongdoing and did nothing toward 
restraining the downward drift. 

2. Epicurean Philosophy—The Epicurean philos- 
ophy is also considered a form of religion in this 
empire of religions; and with its lax view of human 
conduct and its simpler appeal to the human mind, 
it no doubt influenced a much larger number of the 
people than did Stoicism. The advocates of this sys- 
tem taught that pleasure, or happiness, is the chief 
end of man; and while some of the more choice minds 
among its advocates insisted that happiness was found 
only in self-restraint, in correct living according to 
honor and the dictates of conscience, the license of 
the times and the misconceptions and exaggerations 
of its devotees corrupted these better teachings of the 
system and transformed the whole into a mode of 
gross self-indulgence that was correctly characterized 
by the easy-going maxim, “Let us eat, drink, and be 
merry, for to-morrow we die.”” One of their writers 
thus gives expression to their faith: “I will swear, 


D2 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


both now and always, crying aloud to all, Greeks and 
barbarians, that pleasure is the object of the best mode 
of life, while the virtues, which these people now un- 
reasonably meddle with, are by no means an objective, 
but contributory to the objective.” 


THe Heart or MAN STILL HUNGERING 


We thus see a state of society in the Roman Em- 
pire in which there were the most diverse views of 
life, in which all forms of religion were permitted, and 
in which there were general confusion of mind and 
shameful decay of morals. The entire drift in history 
that had resulted in the establishment of imperial Rome 
had created in the nations concerned a “profligacy 
which probably has had no parallel in the annals of the 
race.” Their condition is accurately as well as ad- 
mirably expressed by Paul; “Having no hope and with- 
out God in the world.” 


“On that hard, pagan world disgust 
And secret loathing fell; 
Deep weariness and sated lust 
Made human life a hell.” 


While Rome had, in many respects, improved the 
material welfare of the masses, there were, neverthe- 
less, such an alarming lack of self-restraint, such an 
increasing disregard of human rights, such growing 


20 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


strife and cruelty in all human relations that the more 
thoughtful men of the day were haunted with fears 
concerning the future of the Empire. “Life was ter- 
rible in its fears and in its pleasures.” In attempting 
to use the restraints Of religion to strengthen govern- 
mental authority, the ruling class had really added to 
the lawlessness and dissoluteness of the people by the 
unworthy and essentially degrading forms of religion 
that were introduced and encouraged. 

Then these pagan religions utterly failed to meet the 
deeper spiritual needs and longings of the people. 
There was an eager hungering for a religion that 
would satisfy both the reason and the emotions. The 
heart of man was crying for a Deity with whom there 
could be fellowship and who could bring the assurance 
of salvation from the rank self-indulgence that was de- 
stroying both the individual and society. 


JewisH FairH STEADFAST 


In the midst of this welter of superstitions and this 
unrest of soul we find the Jewish people holding tena- 
ciously to the fundamental religious conceptions handed 
down to them from their ancestors. The political 
ideals, the social customs, the moral standards, the 
varied systems of philosophy found in the diversely 
colored life of Rome—all of these had so impinged 


54 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





upon the life of these children of Abraham as to color 
their views about many matters; but their cardinal re- 
ligious ideas and their devotion to their ancient rites 
and ceremonies remained unchanged. “O Jerusalem, 
if I forget thee, let my right hand forget her cunning” 
—this exclamation may be taken as the real expression 
of the mental and spiritual attitude of this people to- 
ward the God of their fathers and toward the “law of 
Moses.” In Jerusalem the temple service was carried 
on about as it had been in the days of Solomon, while 
sacred days and special seasons were observed with 
old-time regularity and devotion. Thus Judaism 
withstood the paganizing influences that everywhere 
prevailed and held aloft her higher idealism and her 
nobler system of ethics. 


QUESTIONS 


1. What were the moral conditions of the Roman Empire 
at the beginning of the first Christian century? 

2. What effect does religion have on the morals of a 
nation ? 

3. Why were the various heathen religions in the Roman 
Empire unable to improve the morals of the people? 

4. To what extent can a religious system like Stoicism 
that emphasizes self-discipline and a mere philosophy of life 
elevate the morals of the masses of the people? 

5. Why were there so many forms of religion in the Roman 
Empire at the opening of the first Christian century? 


55 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





6. What effect has the character of the god whom a peo- 
ple worship on their moral conduct? 

7. In what particulars was the Jewish religion at this time 
different from the other religions of the Empire? 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Giover, The Conflict of Religions in the Roman Empire. 
PEAKE, Brotherhood in the Old Testament. 
Case, Evolution of Early Christianity. 


CHAPTER IV 
JUDAISM IN NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 
JUDAISM OF THE DISPERSION 


1. The long years of separation between the Dis- 
persion and the Palestinian Jews brought about the 
development of two different types of Judaism. While 
those who had been for generations scattered over the 
world still regarded themselves as being a part of God’s 
chosen people and maintained the characteristic devo- 
tion to the religion of their fathers, their more intimate 
contact with the religions of the world in some degree 
colored their views and modified their religious prac- 
tices. They taught that the vital things in Judaism 
were faith in the one true God and a life of moral 
purity and uprightness. The former rigor of ceremo- 
nial requirements was softened and the great ethical 
principles of their religion were magnified. Thus their 
narrower conceptions of Jehovah’s relations to the 
world gave way to broader and more spiritual views. 
Their minds gradually opened to the truth that the God 
of their fathers was with them in their distant homes, 
that he was the God of the whole earth, and that 

57 


aL, 
A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





through his over-ruling of human affairs the fearful 
misfortunes that had befallen them could be made to 
purify them and to develop them for their predestined 
achievements. Of course this change took place in only 
a small remnant, but it was this remnant that deter- 
mined the type of Judaism that Paul later found in the 
great centers of the Roman Empire. 

2. While living in the atmosphere of Babylonian 
learning the latent literary genius of a number of their 
more choice minds was quickened, and, under the pres- 
sure of their sore afflictions, their hearts so opened to 
the inspiration of the Spirit that new visions of God 
and of life became possible to them. They therefore 
essayed the task of interpreting the great lessons their 
afflictions were intended to teach and of transmitting 
to their people these interpretations in written form. 
Under the guidance of the Spirit of God they took the 
grim facts of their past and present life and in a most 
luminous way brought out their moral and religious 
significance, The emergence of this remarkable litera- 
ture gave to the world some of the richest material that 
now enters into our Old Testament Scriptures. 

3. These Jews became active in carrying on a propa- 
ganda in behalf of their religious views, and this not 
simply among their own people. Their writers availed 
themselves of the use of all the varied forms of litera- 


58 


Ca en SS 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 

ture to create among the people at large a sympathetic 
attitude toward their religion. Books were written in 
the name of Greek and Latin philosophers and poets 
long since dead, declaring faith in the God of the Jews 
and commending Judaism as a moral and religious sys- 
tem. These Jewish scholars set up high claims for their 
religion. Judaism, they insisted, was the highest form 
of philosophy, and they attempted to show that out of 
their Scriptures had come all the truth that had been 
taught by the sages of the world. Through their al- 
legorical method of interpreting the Old Testament 
they easily drew from it all the truths taught by Soc- 
rates and Plato and even insisted that all the wisdom 
of those wise Grecians came from the teaching of 
Moses. The Sibyline Oracles constitute the most re- 
markable collection of these pseudonymous writings. 


JUDAISM IN PALESTINE 


The Judaism of Palestine at the opening of the first 
Christian century was most pronounced in its type and 
intense in its spirit. The sufferings to which the people 
had been subjected by the inroads and oppressions of 
other nations had deepened their national consciousness 
and enhanced in their minds the value and glory of their 
religion, While other nations had their histories, the 
Jews looked back through the sweep of the centuries 

SY 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


Over a most marvelous racial record. Since the days 
of Abraham they had been the people of Jehovah’s 
special love and care. He had miraculously delivered 
them from bondage; he had established them in the 
Holy Land and strangely protected them and prospered 
them; he had ‘committed unto them the oracles of 
God” and had anointed and sent among them a line 
of prophets whose moral standards and high idealism 
challenged the conscience of both Jew and Gentile. 
Through the centuries they had stood for an exalted 
type of monotheism. “The great God above all gods” 
—a personal God who knew and who cared—was their 
God. Hence their contempt for heathen religions, 
whose pagan rites and degraded morals were every- 
where flaunted before their eyes, and their peculiar 
sense of their own dignity and superior moral worth. 
Thus the Jews in Judea grew more exclusive, more 
severe and unrelenting in their spirit under the con- 
stant pressure of the Grzco-Roman world. The 
points of contact with Gentiles that were supposed to 
bring defilement were constantly increased and the line 
of cleavage daily widened between them and the other 
races that were at this time inhabiting their beloved 
land. Devotion to their ritual was maintained while 
their endless traditions were regularly taught and their 
observance solemnly enjoined. 


60 


NER nee 
A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





THE SYNAGOGUE 


At this period the synagogue was the center from 
which religious instruction proceeded. This institution 
came into being in the days of the Babylonian captivity. 
Separated from the land of their fathers and from the 
sacred temple, the people began to assemble in their 
respective communities on each returning Sabbath and 
there recite passages from their Law or some of the 
burning messages from their prophets. Thus the spirit 
of their religion and the bond of brotherhood were 
kept alive during that trying period. The term syna- 
gogue came to be applied either to the building in 
which they met or to the institution itself, and as the 
Jews were scattered among the people of the earth 
this center of religious fellowship and instruction was 
regarded as a vital part of their community life. It 
was also used as a school for their children and youth. 
The synagogue thus came to be a most significant in- 
stitution in the life of the people—the rallying point 
of their devotion and the most effective means of 
spreading their religious views. 


THE SADDUCEES 


There were two parties that greatly influenced the 
interests and character of Judaism, the Sadducees and 
the Pharisees. The Sadducees arose in the second cen- 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


tury before Christ in opposition to the Maccabean party 
and in the first century had become a party of skeptical 
aristocrats. They adhered to the general principles of 
the Mosaic law, but rejected the oral traditions and did 
not believe in the immortality of the soul or the exist- 
ence of spirits. Their position was not attractive to 
the masses of the people in the period of our present 
study, and they numbered only a few thousand. Their 
influence on Judaism was not widely felt. 


Tuer PHARISEES 


1. The real soul of Judaism at this time was Phari- 
saism. This party had descended from the Chasidim, 
the original patriots among the Jews in their struggles 
against foreign foes, and was the pronounced religious 
group among their people. They differed from the 
latitudinarian Sadducees in their strict loyalty to their 
own nation, and also in certain doctrinal questions, 
such as belief in providence, the existence of angels, 
immortality, the resurrection, the freedom of the will, 
and the coming of the Messiah. The main impulse 
that had called this party into existence seems to have 
been a desire for greater purity of life, which, as they 
interpreted it, grew out of a stricter devotion to all of 
the rites and ceremonies of their religion. It was this 
that gave to them their name, “the Separatists.” Their 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





leaders gave themselves industriously to the study of 
the law and insisted on the most punctilious observance 
of all of its requirements. There had also grown out 
of their study of their law a constantly increasing mass 
of oral interpretations and commandments, which came 
to be known as “traditions,” and which were placed 
alongside the law as equally binding and authoritative. 
God was the original giver of all of these laws and the 


> 


welfare and salvation of the people depended upon 
their unhesitating obedience to the rules the rabbis at- 
tached to the daily life. Sacrifices, feasts, ritual, pil- 
grimages, offerings of tithes, rigid Sabbath restrictions 
—these were enjoined as the vital elements in their 
religion, 

2. Both in theory and in practice Pharisaism gave 
emphasis to the negative side of life. “Thou shalt 
not’ was the dominant note in its appeal to both old 
and young. Withdrawal from contact with the mul- 
titude of things that, according to their interpretation, 
brought defilement was made a fundamental duty; and 
this led to endless washings of dishes, of utensils, of 
the hands and person, and to a studied isolation of 
themselves from the common folk about them. Natu- 
rally, this resulted in the creation of a sect, a church 
within a church, a sort of “holier than thou” group, 
whose spirit became intolerant and whose piety became 

63 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





offensively obtrusive. They delighted in praying on 
street corners that they might be seen of men. It is 
not surprising to learn from some of the things that 
Jesus said of them that there were many hypocrites 
among them, for such a scheme of life would have a 
strong tendency to beget the spirit of hypocrisy. 
There were, however, sincere, heroic souls among them, 
men who were living in all good conscience toward 
God. 

3. Starting with its rabbinical assumptions, Phari- 
saism, with its exacting spirit and endless details, was a 
natural development. If man is to be saved by ac- 
cumulating commandments and restrictions, then his 
life must consist of ceaseless inhibitions and a contin- 
uous effort to make conduct conform to a complicated 
system of rules, This was the “yoke” against which 
Peter protested when he declared that “neither we nor 
our fathers were able to bear” it. The insistence that 
righteousness was obtained solely through unfailing 
observance of the Mosaic Law, while rabbinical inter- 
pretation was constantly adding to the duties involved, 
was most discouraging to faith and deadening to in- 
telligent religious hopes. 

4. The carrying out of the idea of “the separated 
ones,” which was the real significance of Pharisaism, 
had the practical effect of creating a sharp division be- 

64 


a 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 
Ek EA Tan ear et a OS Le So 
tween them and the great body of their orthodox fel- 
low countrymen. However willing the common people 
may have been to acknowledge the validity and bind- 
ing force of the minute prescriptions with regard to 
Levitical purity and the use of foods, strict observance 
was for them impossible. The daily tasks, to which 
they were driven by the necessities of life, made con- 
tact with many of these forbidden things inevitable. 
But in the eyes of the regular Pharisees all such were 
to be regarded as unclean, and in order to forestall any 
tisk of defilement they avoided as far as possible all 
intercourse with this class. They held that genuine 
Israelites were those, and only those, who scrupulously 
observed both the written and the oral law, with 
special emphasis on Levitical purity, tithes, and the reg- 
ular religious performances. The rest of the people— 
the great mass of the Jews—were simply the common 
herd. Hence the heartless words: “This multitude that 
knoweth not the law are accursed.” This throws light 
on the bitter criticisms heaped on Jesus because of his 
free intercourse with publicans and sinners. Their de- 
mand for ceremonial and outward purity created also 
a determination to make Judea an isolated common- 
wealth, removed, as far as it was possible, from all 
danger of contamination with heathen life. 

9. But in spite of its religious exclusiveness 


65 


re ee 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 
RCA tee ae ROR ol CS ORE 
Pharisaism cannot be considered a “sect” in the full 
sense of that word. In their public worship they had 
to meet the regular Jewish community on a common 
basis. They must worship in the temple and in the 
synagogue alongside the great mass of their fellow 
countrymen, since they all held in common the same 
general doctrines and were all alike the sons of Abra- 
ham. This enables us to understand in part the fact 
that, notwithstanding their undemocratic spirit as 
shown in their effort to avoid social defilement, they 
ultimately became the most popular and influential par- 
ty among the Jewish people. Even the Roman rulers 
and the high priests had to recognize their superior 
influence and power. The multitude was with them and 
finally officials of the Sadducean party had to come to 
their terms in matters of state. Even when the high 
priest was still the head of the Sanhedrin and the Sad- 
ducees were probably in the majority in that body, the 
Pharisees were the real rulers in determining religious 
questions. Other things entered into this popular 
favor. Notwithstanding their offensive self-righteous- 
ness they were not as undemocratic and as unapproach- 
able as were the Sadducees, they persistently cultivated 
national hatred toward the Romans, and their appeal 
to the Law commanded the respect of many who 
despised their petty restrictions and endless casuistries. 


66 








A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





6. It is easy to misunderstand the patriotism of the 
Pharisees. Theirs was a religious patriotism. What 
they longed for was not the establishment of a merely 
independent, secular kingdom of their beloved Israel, 
but a cleansed people, an Israel transformed through 
the observance of the whole law, a nation from which 
all sinners were excluded and over which God reigned 
in the person of his representative. After their re- 
peated and humiliating defeats by other nations most 
of them were now looking for the setting up of such a 
kingdom, not by political methods, but by the direct 
intervention of Jehovah; and the one way in which 
they thought they could prepare the way for and hasten 
this divine intervention was by emphasizing the law 
and strictly carrying out its commands. 

7. Meanwhile the Gentile order under which they 
were living was to be recognized as a chastisement for 
their people’s violations of their law and must for the 
time be endured; still it was held to be violation of 
the sovereignty of God over his own people. The one 
and only rightful king of Israel was God, and there 
could be no legitimate ruler except God’s vicegerent, 
a son of David. Hence the rule of the Herods and 
of the Romans was most grievous to the Pharisees, and 
they constantly fanned the flames of hatred toward 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





Rome until it finally burst forth in a conflagration that 
swept the Jews out of the country. 

8. Thus the Pharisees so stamped their views and 
ways of life upon the whole social and religious life of 
the Jews that Judaism and Pharisaism came to be al- 
most synonymous terms. And this dominant spirit 
was extremely provincial and intolerant. The Pharisee 
worshiped instruments. Institutions, customs, ancient 
traditions were of far more significance to him than 
were men, or the real truths about life. He was, both 
in temperament and training, a traditionalist, and was 
always looking for precedent and listening for the 
voices of the distant past. His God was the God of 
Israel, who had spoken to his fathers in the long ago 
and had hated and overthrown their enemies. But of 
God as a being of high ethical principles, he had the 
most inadequate conception; and that God was now 
immanent in all the affairs of human life never entered 
the current of his thought. Doctrines, rites, ceremo- 
nials—to these he gave his utmost loyalty and upon 
those who did not accept and observe them he was 
ready to visit the severest penalties. The tithing of 
mint and anise was of much greater importance to him 
than were justice and mercy, and adherence to his 
trivial Sabbath restrictions, than was the healing of one 
who for many years had been bound by disease. Thus 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





Judaism, in the atmosphere in which Christianity was 
to be cradled, was cold and hard, critical and cruel. 
This spirit later reveals itself most strikingly in the 
conduct of the Sanhedrin and other officials toward 
both Jesus and Paul. 


UNSPIRITUAL TONE OF JUDAISM 


1. Judaism at this time was seriously lacking in high 
idealism. This may be especially observed in its views 
and customs with regard to tithing. To their flocks 
and herds, to the produce from their fields, and even 
to their garden vegetables, the tithing law was most 
rigidly applied. But to what end and for what pur- 
pose? First, because this was the immediate condition 
to material prosperity. “Bring ye all the tithes into the 
storehouse, and see if I will not pour you out a bless- 
ing’’—cried the prophet, and the blessing, as Judaism 
was then interpreting it, was to be more abundant crops 
and more fruitful flocks. Then this tithe was to be 
used in their own interest—in defraying their temple 
expenses and in feeding and caring for their poor. 
That this view of the tithe was one of the special fac- 
tors in both developing and revealing their hypocrisy, 
is made evident in the language with which Jesus tore 
off their disguise and left bare their pettiness and 
ghastly selfishness. Thus Judaism at this period was 

69 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





largely bereft of the spirituality that characterized their 
fathers and inspired their great prophets. 

2. But there was another side to Judaism. Not- 
withstanding the moral defects and the doctrinal hard- 
ness and narrowness: we have just reviewed, there were 
teachers among the Jews who went behind all of their 
casuistry to the fundamental things in their religion 
and gave a spiritual and constructive view of life, 
while they also insisted on a freer and more neighborly 
intercourse with those among whom they lived. These 
teachers insisted that the essence of Judaism was simply 
faith in the one true God and a life of purity and up- 
rightness: “What doth the Lord require of thee, but 
to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly 
with thy God?” These views made a strong appeal to 
thoughtful and earnest-minded men and seemed to of- 
fer the help that was needed for their distraught and 
blinded world. There was also a growing tendency 
upon the part of these more thoughtful leaders to tone 
down the rigor of their ceremonial requirements and 
thus soften and make more attractive their religion. 
Thus their pure monotheism and their finer ethical 
ideas were made to have a more winsome appeal to the 
conscience and the common sense of the more thought- 
ful among the other races about them. 

3. This larger and more attractive view of their 


70 


ee EE SE TT SS SS EE TERRE FI TE TOE SSS SET A TEE CR SEE 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





religion was due to the insight and sublime idealism of 
the great prophets. Indeed the remarkable vitality of 
Judaism, weighted as it was with rabbinical narrow- 
ness and casuistry, was due to the unconquerable 
spirit and the burning messages that had come down 
to them from the prophets. These were men who, 
under divine illumination, had been freed from the in- 
tellectual restrictions of legalism and ritualism, and 
had discovered that great principles determine the his- 
tory and destiny of both individuals and nations. In- 
stead of interpreting religion in terms of petty rules 
and rites, instead of thinking of God as a Being 
pledged simply to the task of making Israel prosperous 
and politically dominant, these men saw him as the God 
of the whole earth and a Being of infinite righteous- 
ness; and they realized that religion must be interpreted 
in the terms of those great principles of righteousness 
which have to do with the inner life—the motives, the 
purposes, the desires. They therefore declared that 
when the people failed to harmonize their lives with 
these inexorable principles they must suffer and go 
down in defeat, while true repentance and loyalty to 
God would bring deliverance from their entanglements 
and establish them as “the chosen of the Lord.” 

4. This prophetic spirit glorified the Messianic hope 
that oppression and repeated defeat had awakened, and, 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





freeing it from Pharisaic fanaticism, expressed it some- 
times in terms of the “kingdom of the saints’ and 
again in the terms of an individual deliverer, “The 
Anointed of God.’ In either case they believed that 
through this Messiah.God would sweep away the evils 
that were afflicting them and would establish in right- 
eousness a kingdom that would have no end. The 
persistent and progressive conception of the Messianic 
hope, that ran like a golden thread through the religion 
of the more spiritual of the Jewish people, was due to 
this noble group of inspired prophets. There was 
wide difference of view among the people as to how 
the Messianic kingdom was to be realized. Some 
looked for its establishment through organization and 
force, while others, despairing of success through any 
sort of political means, confidently awaited divine in- 
tervention in the form of some fearful cataclysm that 
would end the old order and establish the true king- 
dom. However vague and fanatical the Messianic 
hope may have been in the mind of the masses, the 
clear-eyed prophets insisted that the God of their 
fathers was to triumph and reign in righteousness, and 
something of this exalted conception was at the center 
of the hope that possessed every Jewish mind in the 
first Christian century and made every Jewish heart 
expectant. 


72 


gee ett eile ls etd ma al a tc 
A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 

See al TL a al Le alae 

Faith and loyalty toward the God of their fathers, 
notwithstanding the collapse of many cherished expec- 
tations, and a tenacious hold on certain great moral 
principles, despite an environment noted for its pagan- 
ism and immorality, make Judaism the outstanding 
religion of the ancient world. God had revealed to 
her certain fundamental truths and principles that the 
human heart could never relinquish, and the soil was 
thus prepared for the planting of that final form of 
religion through which all the nations of the earth are 
to be so graciously blessed. 

QUESTIONS 

1. What was it that called the Pharisaic party into exist- 
ence? 

2. What did Pharisaism stand for? 

3. Who were the Sadducees and how did they differ from 
the Pharisaic party? 

4. Why did Pharisaism stamp itself so conspicuously on 
the life of Judaism? 

5. What were the outstanding and most dangerous ten- 
dencies of Pharisaism? 

6. What is the great danger in making religion to consist 
in a system of rules and rites? 

7. What attitude did the great prophets assume toward a 
religion of rites and mere routine? 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Gover, The Conflict of Religions in the Roman Emptre. 
GarvneER, Religious Experiences of St. Paul. 


73 


CHAPTER, 


THE MORE IMMEDIATE PREPARATION FOR 
THE BIRTH OF CHRISTIANITY 


THE most momentous event in the history of the race 
was the birth of Christianity. It marks such a distinct 
turn in the tide of human affairs that modern civiliza- 
tion traces to it its origin, and all of the formative 
forces that have been contributing to the making of a 
better world are found rooted in this religion. It is 
difficult for us to realize how radically it has changed 
man’s views concerning God and transformed his whole 
outlook on life. As Dr. Glover has expressed it: 
“Jesus Christ came to men as a great new experience. 
He took them far outside all they had known of God 
and of man. He led them, historically, into what was 
in truth a new world, into a new understanding of 
life in all its relations.’”’ For such an epochal event 
we may reasonably look for a long process of provi- 
dential preparation traceable through the great move- 
ments of history, since this “from the foundation of 
the world” has been the 


“One far-off divine event 
To which the whole creation moves.”’ 


74 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


Since Christianity is defined as “the doctrines and 
teachings of Jesus Christ,’’ we may for the purposes of 
this chapter say that it had its birth when Jesus 
gathered a group of disciples about him and began to 
reveal his mind to them and to start them out in his 
way of life. The birth of Christianity was therefore 
the beginning of the unfolding of a great body of 
truth and the starting of a mighty spiritual movement, 
and these were to reach and vitally affect the whole 
structure of human life. For such a daring adventure 
the most opportune time in history must have been 
chosen. 

1. The extension of the Roman Empire and its 
strong centralized government may be regarded, in a 
sense, as providential means in preparing the world 
for the birth and growth of Christianity. In the crude 
stage of human life at that time it seems that an 
autocratic government was best suited for securing in- 
dividual rights, maintaining a stable government, and 
making possible a peaceful state of society. The strong 
government of the Czsars made every citizen’s life 
measurably safe wherever he might find himself within 
the vast sweep of its territory. Thus when Paul in 
his journeys in extending Christianity was attacked 
by “false brethren,” or by Gentiles of the “baser sort,” 
he had only to declare himself a Roman citizen to 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





secure immediate protection. War was no longer a 
menace that weighed on the people’s spirits, since a 
foreign war anywhere on the soil of Rome’s far-reach- 
ing territory could hardly be thought of. Only civil 
war could be feared and the Roman army was so 
powerful that this was thought by the people to be 
almost impossible. The public mind was not, there- 
fore, enthralled with fear. 

2. That there might be easy communication between 
the city of Rome and her numerous provinces, a great 
system of highways was constructed, leading from each 
province or district directly to Rome, and along these 
highways inns, taverns, and other places of entertain- 
ment were prepared, so that travelers could easily find 
places for rest and refreshment. Thus was made pos- 
sible at the opening of the first century safe and reason- 
ably comfortable travel throughout the Roman world. 
These facilities, combined with certain peculiar social 
conditions of the day, begat a desire for wider knowl- 
edge and gave a general impulse to travel. Officials 
and government messengers passed busily back and 
forth between Rome and her various provinces, and 
from province to province. Centurions and soldiers 
were also regularly circulating along these highways, 
while numerous embassies to Rome from the cities in 
various parts of the Empire, or from Rome to the 


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governors of the distant provinces, pressed their way 
along these great national arteries of trade and travel. 

3. Many were traveling for purposes of health, ed- 
ucation, or purely for pleasure. Large numbers of 
patients from great distances visited curative springs 
and the famous medical institutions connected with 
religious centers, and students flocked by the thousands 
to the celebrated schools at Athens, Alexandria, and 
Rome. Then there was a large floating element in 
search of employment pouring its streams along these 
roadways into the great cities, particularly into Rome. 
There was therefore not only a ceaseless multitude cir- 
culating over the Empire, but also a great variety of 
people from all walks of life. Hence men of all shades 
of thought intermingled, and new ideas easily passed 
from mind to mind. These physical conditions and 
this general habit of travel made possible that gather- 
ing in Jerusalem from all parts of the Roman Empire 
on the Day of Pentecost; they were also necessary 
conditions for the rapid spread of Christianity over 
the Roman world. 

4. Another fact worthy of mention in this provi- 
dential preparation for the introduction of Christianity 
was the universality of the Greek language as a means 
of both oral and written communication. As already 
noted, Rome was made up of peoples from many races 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


LL 


and tongues and the Greek had become one of the two 
languages in universal use. Most, if not all, of the 
books of the New Testament were written in the 
Greek, and this highly developed language, with its 
superior facility in expressing delicate shades of 
thought and thus conveying to the mind spiritual ideas, 
seems to have been providentially ordained as the most 
effective means of transmitting to the world this 
highest revelation of truth. 

5. Greek philosophy and literature, marred as they 
were in some of their conceptions of the universe and 
of human life, rendered a notable service in preparing 
the human mind to think in the larger terms of the 
Christian religion. The increased stimulus given to 
travel and intercourse under the Roman sway made 
the people generally acquainted with the rich treasures 
of Greek learning; this immensely enriched the minds 
of the people, and also created a bond of intellectual 
and moral sympathy. The literary and artistic genius 
of the Greeks became generally recognized, and their 
achievements in philosophy, literature, science, and art 
were esteemed and appropriated by the many nation- 
alities that commingled in the Roman Empire. Thus 
the intellectual range was immensely extended, the 
spirit of inquiry was greatly quickened, and the mind 


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was made more hospitable to new adventures into the 
wide realms of thought. 


JEWIsH CONTRIBUTION 


1. It was the Jewish race that made the most pro- 
nounced, the most vital, contribution toward preparing 
the world for the coming of the Christian religion. 
We have already referred to the service the Jews ren- 
dered the world in giving it their exalted monotheism. 
From the days of Abraham they had held before men 
a unique conception of the oneness and spirituality of 
God. “The Lord our God is one Lord,” they de- 
clared, and in his nature is “high and lifted up” far 
above all that is material. The great prophets, whose 
minds came in such a remarkable degree under the il- 
lumination of the Divine Spirit, filled this idea with 
its larger meaning and proclaimed him the God of 
perfect righteousness and the ruler of the world. 
These prophets also insisted that he was approachable, 
that he was reasonable, that he cared for mankind. 
They represented him as crying to his erring people, 
“Come now and let us reason together.”’ Loyalty to 
him, therefore, upon the part of his people, and devo- 
tion to his great ethical principles, must eventuate 
somehow in victory over their enemies and in their 
general well-being. It was this idea deeply embedded 

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in their minds that turned Pharisaic teachers with such 
eager hearts to the search for the path of righteousness, 
notwithstanding their fatal mistake in adopting the way 
of casuistry and ritual. In their blindness they were 
“feeling after God, if haply they might find him.” 

2. The literature of the Jewish people had a far- 
reaching influence in preparing the soil of the first 
Christian century for the planting of the truths of the 
gospel of Christ. This literature was a slow growth 
through many generations and, springing out of the 
throes of profound personal and national experiences, 
it dealt with the fundamental questions of human life. 
“Holy men of old spake as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost.”” With the consciousness that the hand 
of the Lord was upon them, these men, with poetic 
insight and prophetic passion, dared to speak for God 
and thus make known his mind and the great ethical 
principles by which he was governing the world. This 
literature made its appearance in the form of history, 
of homily, of poetry, of prophecy. With its charm- 
ing imagery, its deep tone of sincerity, and its clear note 
of authority, it everywhere challenged the mind to a 
deeper study of the great questions of religion. 

3. With the Jewish people there was a growing 
feeling that the fullness of time had come for the God 
of their fathers to make bare his arm and fulfill his 

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promise of a glorious victory for his chosen people. 
Hence there was at the opening of the first century a 
widespread expectation that “the wrath to come,” 
which was to be poured out on their oppressors as 
the initial step in founding the kingdom of the Mes- 
siah, was about to be turned loose. Moved by a strong 
impulse to equip themselves for this great event, there 
were those, like the Essenes, who, yielding to a ten- 
dency toward the ascetic life, retired from general con- 
tact with society and gave themselves to the most 
rigorous self-denial and the most persistent self-dis- 
cipline. Others, like Simeon and Anna, led lives of 
quiet devotion in the ordinary walks of life, animated 
with a growing conviction that God was about to send 
the long-looked-for Deliverer who would lead his 
people out of their humiliation “into a large place,” 
where there would be nothing to hurt or make afraid. 
There were, no doubt, many spiritually-minded house- 
holds in which this expectation was growing daily more 
poignant and concerning which they thoughtfully con- 
versed as they gathered about their hearthstone. It 
was through such means as this, we may believe, that 
the Holy Spirit prepared Elizabeth and Mary for their 
holy functions. 

This Messianic conception awoke far back in Jewish 
history with something of the vagueness of a dream, 

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but as misfortunes continued and their minds opened 
to the Spirit it took on more definite form and dif- 
fused itself through all their religious thinking. At 
the opening of the first Christian century it had spread 
among the masses of the people until the Sadducees 
alone refused to share in this hope. The people at 
large were waiting for their Deliverer and eagerly ex- 
pectant concerning his appearance. 


THE CONTRIBUTION OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 


In an atmosphere thus charged with Messianic ex- 
pectancy, and in one of the deeply pious homes in the 
tribe of Judah, there was born a child, at the very 
beginning of our era, who was to become the fore- 
runner of the Messiah in the more immediate preparae 
tion of the public mind for the ministry of Jesus. 
John’s father was a priest and his mother was one of 
those beautiful souls that had been nourished and re- 
fined by religion and had become inspired by pro- 
longed dwelling on the Messianic hope. This child, 
known in manhood as John the Baptist, a child of 
promise, a gift of God to these devout parents, was 
to be so trained and so empowered that he could “make 
ready for the Lord a people prepared for him.” 
Through all of his childhood and youth he must have 
been kept face to face with the fact that he was sent 

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of God to do a specific work in preparing the way 
for the promised Messiah. We can easily imagine the 
effect that such a religious atmosphere—such an un- 
usual conception of the significance of one’s life and 
. such exciting expectations—would have on the mind 
of a highly sensitive child and youth. It seems that 
quite early in his manhood John became an extreme 
ascetic, retiring into the wilderness and there medi- 
tating amid the silences of nature on the hopes of his 
people and on the strange implications of his high call- 
ing. The first view history gives us of him after the 
story of his birth is his sudden emergence from his 
long retirement with his startling message that the 
kingdom of heaven was at hand. Of course the sub- 
stance of such a message would at once attract wide 
attention; and adding the deep earnestness of the 
speaker and the authority with which he spoke, we 
can understand why multitudes were drawn from all 
classes of society to hear this prophet of the desert. 
His emphasis on personal repentance and on the im- 
mediacy of the new kingdom made his preaching im- 
mensely effective and this in a large way contributed 
to the preparation of the public mind for the richer 
and more vital message of the One who came after 
him. 


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Tur BirTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS 


1. About six months after the birth of John the 
Baptist Jesus was born in the little town of Bethlehem 
of Judea. Thither Mary, the mother of Jesus, and 
Joseph, to whom she was espoused, had gone from 
their home in Nazareth to be enrolled under a special 
order from Cesar Augustus. “In the political con- 
dition of the Roman Empire, of which Judea then 
formed part, a single whisper of the Emperor was 
sufficiently powerful to secure the execution of his 
mandates in the remotest corner of the civilized world.” 
Hence, the explanation of the appearance of Joseph 
and Mary at the time and place appointed at such a 
critical period in Mary’s life. In the New Testament 
record we are told that Mary was betrothed to Joseph 
as his wife and, as we have already seen, it was not 
unusual for the couple to have no further ceremony 
after that of the betrothal, and their living together 
was regarded by society as good form. 

2. Joseph and Mary had their modest betrothal 
ceremony in keeping with the simple custom of the 
humble class to which they belonged. Luke, no doubt 
the most careful historian who has made a contribu- 
tion to our early records concerning Jesus, relates a 
most beautiful story, as striking in its reserve as in 


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what it discloses, of a divine interposition resulting in 
the virgin birth of Jesus; and while it is possible to 
conceive that God might have chosen some other way 
of sending the Messiah into the world, still from the 
standpoint of history there is no reasonable ground for 
discrediting this New Testament account. Luke in- 
forms us that he went back to the sources and “traced 
the course of all things accurately from the first.” It 
must, therefore, have been currently reported among 
the “eye witnesses” of Jesus, whom Luke seems care- 
fully to have consulted. 

3. The multitudes that came up for this enrollment 
from distant quarters because of ancestral connection 
with this historic village, soon crowded its little inns 
and public houses until all sheltering retreats were 
sought and gladly utilized by travelers weary with their 
long journeys. Joseph and Mary, along with many 
other belated travelers, took refuge for the night in 
one of the numerous caves which abound in the lime- 
stone hills about Bethlehem, places which were ordi- 
narily used to shelter and protect domestic animals. 
Here Jesus was born. 

Although we have little more than occasional ref- 
erences to Joseph and Mary by the New Testament 
writers, enough is revealed to enable us to form a 
pretty definite idea of their character and inner life. 

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They were both intensely devout and were no doubt 
deeply imbued with the current Messianic hopes of 
their race. They evidently were deeply thoughtful 
and were anxiously concerned about their nation and 
the fate the future had in store for their distressed 
people. With such profound natures and with such a 
thoughtful attitude toward life, their home life would 
naturally be well ordered and pervaded with the spirit 
of religion. In such a home moral and religious train- 
ing would have first consideration and would be of a 
high order. There is certain to have been some con- 
nection between such careful home-training and the 
fact that, at the age of twelve, Jesus’s questions and 
replies to the doctors of the law were so replete with 
wisdom “that all who heard him were amazed at his 
understanding and his answers.” And the rapid de- 
velopment after he returned with his parents to his 
Nazareth home that led Luke to make the suggestive 
remark, “He grew in wisdom,” was the result of the 
most intelligent instruction and training. With our 
knowledge of Jewish educational methods we cannot 
doubt that in his early childhood Jesus was made 
thoroughly familiar with the Jewish ritual, and with 
the simpler parts of many of their holy books. With 
the Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, and 
others of the prophets, he must have become conver- 


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sant early in his life, as his knowledge of them is shown 
to have been extensive and profound. It is also 
thought that he was acquainted with the uncanonical 
Jewish books. He could use both the Aramaic and 
Greek languages, and there is reason for believing that 
he also knew Hebrew. 

4. Whatever educational advantages were available 
in the little town of Nazareth, we may be sure that 
these anxious and intelligent parents utilized them in 
the training and development of this earnest-minded 
boy. They must eagerly have watched for every op- 
portunity the synagogue or the village school offered 
for developing his mind and giving him a fuller un- 
derstanding of the religion of their fathers. But above 
all that was done for his development and instruction 
by his home and community were his own ceaseless 
efforts to grow in mind and expand in soul. This was 
made manifest in his visit to the classroom of the 
teachers of the law in the temple at the age of twelve. 
How he studied nature and through her laws came 
to such a satisfying understanding of God and the 
great moral order of the world is revealed in that 
wonderful treasure of wisdom he has left us in the 
parables of our Gospels. 

5. It seems likely that at an early period in his 
youth he began to work with Joseph at the carpenter’s 

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trade. As there were two sisters and several brothers 
younger than himself in the home, such a large family 
must have made his labor necessary as an aid to Joseph 
in supporting them. Then, as his mother appears in 
the record of the Gospels as a widow a little later in 
his life, it is likely that Joseph’s death may have 
thrown the burden of family support on Jesus at an 
early period. 

6. It is evident that he knew the life of his people. 
Their habits of thought, the significance of all of 
their parties and sects, their petty religious views and 
practices and the high hopes that nourished a noble 
remnant, were all open to his penetrating vision. The 
Messianic thought that was engaging the mind of the 
people at large, and was burning like a flame in some 
of the finer souls, must have profoundly interested 
and influenced Jesus. The report of the work of John 
the Baptist, who had suddenly come from his long 
desert retirement and was now attracting multitudes 
from all classes of society with his burning message 
about the new kingdom that was at hand, drew Jesus 
from his daily task to the banks of the Jordan that 
he might hear this strange prophet. John’s message 
was very simple and quite limited in its range of 
thought, but it came with such moral earnestness that 
it smote deeply men’s consciences and made keen and 


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commanding their Messianic expectations. When 
Jesus presented himself for baptism, John’s spiritual 
vision, sharpened by these years of self-discipline and 
communion with God, discovered in Jesus one not only 
superior to himself in character and spiritual endow- 
ment, but also the One prepared and sent to meet the 
Messianic longing of his sinning and afflicted people. 
Through the prophetic words of John concerning him 
may we not believe a fuller consciousness of his 
peculiar relationship to God and of his Messianic mis- 
sion was immediately awakened in Jesus? We can thus 
understand his being seized with an impelling desire 
to retire into some quiet place where, alone with his 
Father, he could think through the significance of his 
mission. 

7. This forty days’ retirement was an experience 
of intense struggle through a period of prolonged and 
terrible temptation. It was no doubt this experience 
especially that led one of the New Testament writers 
to say of him, “He suffered, being tempted.” In this 
period of profound and prolonged concentration of 
thought on his life’s work we may believe that he saw 
in outline all that was involved in his Messianic mis- 
sion—even the cross itself. He, therefore, came out 
of this season of deep, anxious meditation with such 
a sense of moral and spiritual victory, with such a 


89 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 
$$$ SL SSS ll eSNG 


consciousness of his own capabilities, and with such 
an intimate knowledge of the mind of the Father that 
he was ready to commit himself irrevocably to his 
superhuman task. 


QUESTIONS 


1. Why was the birth of Christianity such a momentous 
event? 

2. Why had it not earlier made its appearance? 

3. What preparation do you think was necessary to the 
effective spreading of the Christian religion? 

4. What part could government play in this preparation? 

5. What effect does culture have in preparing a people for 
a higher conception of God and of human life? 

6. How did the revival of learning after Alexander’s con- 
quest affect the religious attitude of the people generally? 

7. What contribution did John the Baptist make to the 
religious life of his people? 

8. Did the parents of Jesus have any part in the making 
of his character ? 

9. What effect did the Jewish Church have on his life? 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Farrar, The Life of Christ. 
New, Dictionary. 
Matuews, A History of New Testament Times. 


90 


CHAPTERS VI 
JESUS’ PUBLIC MINISTRY 


Ir was in an atmosphere vibrant with expectancy 
that Jesus began his public ministry. While all were 
looking for their great deliverer, their ideas were quite 
indefinite both as to his nature and his character. Of 
this much they seemed quite sure, that he was to have 
kingly qualities and prerogatives, and was to be God’s 
chosen agent in establishing the new kingdom. In 
such terms as “King,” “Anointed,” “Son of David,” 
the idea conveyed was that of a leader chosen and 
fitted by God for bringing in the new order. It seems 
doubtful whether, in the minds of either the scribes 
or the common people, there was any question as to 
the nature of this expected deliverer. That their long- 
looked-for rescue and triumph were near, and that the 
divinely commissioned one who was to effect this de- 
liverance was about to make his appearance, were con- 
siderations altogether sufficient for their practical habit 
of thought. 

JESUS THE CARPENTER 

Jesus was about thirty years of age when his public 

career of teaching and preaching began. Up to this 


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time he had lived so simply and humbly that he was 
hardly known outside of his own community; and in 
the village of Nazareth, where he had been from his 
childhood, he had not, as far as we are informed, under- 
taken any sort of leadership. He was known simply 
as a quiet toiler, albeit a man of unusual probity of 
life and marked elevation of thought. His superior 
knowledge of the Scriptures may have sometimes led 
to his being invited to read the lesson in the synagogue 
service ; but the question asked when he made his pub- 
lic appearance—‘TIs not this the carpenter ?”—seems 
fully to reveal his standing in his community up to 
this time. 


Becinninc His Ministry 

With beautiful simplicity and penetrating insight 
Jesus began his ministry. John the Baptist, upon 
whose sensitive soul had been flashed the impression — 
that Jesus was the Messiah, introduced him to his 
disciples as the One who was to come, and this at 
once gave Jesus the sympathetic hearing of this deeply 
religious group. It was from this company that he 
won his first followers, which doubtless led him to 
spend the first months of his ministry in Judea. Here 
he called the people to repentance and did his work, 
in this incipient stage, very much after the order of 

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his great forerunner. A little later he withdrew from 
such close proximity to John and, accompanied by his 
disciples, went into Galilee; and there, after the im- 
prisonment of John, he threw himself with great vigor 
into the work of healing the sick and otherwise min- 
istering to physical needs, and also in carrying on a 
persistent campaign of evangelism. In the meantime 
he seemed to regard the religious education and spir- 
itual development of his chosen disciples as his major 
task. 


THE Contrast BETWEEN JOHN AND JESUS 


In the most simple and artless way Jesus began his 
work. Without any reference to any sort of doctrinal 
system and without even the suggestion of a desire 
for an organization, he simply took up John’s mes- 
sage as his starting point and, insisting that the king- 
dom of God was at hand, began to unfold its nature. 
But there was a marked contrast between John and 
Jesus. John was a rough man of the desert, a rigidly 
self-disciplined, uncultured ascetic, with the ascetic’s 
meager outlook on life and with but little more than 
a negative conception of the significance of the new 
kingdom for whose coming he was looking. He saw 
that the old order of life must be abandoned. Men 
must turn from their unrighteous ways. “The ax was 


os 


ELE 
A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





laid at the root of the tree” ready to destroy the old 
order of life. But he could not envisage the high 
character of the new kingdom. He most vigorously 
condemned sin and urged men to repent, but of the 
deep significance of sin—of its enchanting power, of 
its terrible mastery over men, and the means of per- 
manent recovery from it—John had no satisfying 
message. 

How different the life and the teaching of Jesus! 
He lived a thoroughly normal human life, “eating and 
drinking” with all classes of men and thus taking his 
place in social life about him, notwithstanding his con- 
sciousness that he was the Messiah whose coming John 
had proclaimed, and that to him was committed the 
work of founding the kingdom of God. So far was 
he removed from the ascetic life of the Baptist that 
some of the unfriendly-minded severely criticised him 
because, as they said, “he eateth with publicans and 
sinners.” Then over against John’s imperfect con- 
ceptions of the new kingdom and of the life of the 
individual in the new order stands the radiant ideal 
of Jesus. His mind was so saturated with the visions 
of ancient prophets and psalmists, he had so delighted 
in the revelation of the divine mind through nature’s 
processes and had so cultivated the great experiences 
that grew out of his intimate fellowship with his 

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Father, that he brought to his ministry a great con- 
structive view of the new kingdom, a view laden with 
the wealth of his own abundant life. As he gradually 
outlined it, the kingdom was to be a new social order 
in which God was to be the Father and supreme Ruler 
and all men were to be brethren working together for 
the fulfillment of the Father’s will. He saw sin deeply 
rooted in man’s nature and blighting his whole life, 
that sin has to do with motives and desires and wells 
up out of the depths of the heart. In the new kingdom 
adequate means must be provided for the conquest of 
sin, and he shows that this can be done only by the 
life-giving presence and power of the Spirit of God 
in the heart of man. Right living and fellowship in 
this new kingdom were not to be secured, he insisted, 
by petty inhibitions, endless ceremonial cleansings, and 
a general outward religious routine. They must pro- 
ceed from great principles divinely implanted in man’s 
spiritual nature. 

Viewed from the standpoint of the popular concep- 
tion of the kingdom, the task of inaugurating and 
establishing it might be quite easy. With the deep- 
seated popular discontent with things as they were, 
with the burning resentment of the Jews toward those 
who had long held them in subjection, and with the 
general feverish expectations of some form of divine 


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interposition, all that would have been necessary for 
Jesus to do in order to enlist under his leadership both 
the Pharisees and the masses of the people would have 
been to make an appeal to their prejudices and organize 
them for action. But he saw that only by patiently 
giving the people the truth, by discovering to them 
the mind and character of God, and by revealing to 
them the inwardness and essentially spiritual nature of 
religion would it be possible to establish the kingdom 
of God. Since this entire program would run counter 
to general prejudices and preconceptions, he no doubt 
clearly saw that the fate of the great prophets of the 
past would also be his and that he was, therefore, 
entering upon a mission that necessarily involved 
vicarious suffering. 


UNIQUE CHARACTER OF His TEACHING 


Jesus did not align himself with any of the religious 
parties of his day and did not champion either the 
Pharisaic or the popular Messianic view. In the earlier 
part of his ministry he devoted himself to making 
known to his disciples the elements of character neces- 
sary to membership in the new kingdom rather than 
to the discussion of his Messiahship. The term “Son 
of Man,” which he so frequently used at this period 
to designate himself, was taken from the book of 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


Daniel where it represents “a man as the type of a 
kingdom of saints.” Instead, therefore, of invoking 
a discussion about his own person, Jesus preferred to 
make clear to them the standards and ideals of his 
kingdom. He could thus let his own life stand out 
before them as the type of those who were to make 
up this kingdom. Later in his ministry he made it 
plain and emphatic that he was the One sent of God 
and that to see him was to see the Father; but with 
profound insight into his mission he held their at- 
tention at this early stage of his ministry to the ele- 
ments of character, the way of life, involved in the 
new kingdom. His significant call was, “Come, and 
learn of me.” His plan was to have his disciples con- 
stantly with him, that through this intimate fellowship 
with him they might see the character of God and 
catch the spirit of the new kingdom. Men who could 
not at first understand his words and were unable to 
grasp his ideals, by this close friendship came to love 
him, and through this love to grasp his thought and 
discern his spirit. 


His WorK IN GALILEE 


It is of his ministry in Galilee that we have the 
fullest account in the Gospels. From the beginning he 
was popular with the Galileans. His interest in the 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





poor and the suffering, his evident superiority to other 
teachers with whose instruction they were familiar, 
“the sweet reasonableness’ of his message, his gracious 
spirit—all of these things combined to make him 
irresistibly attractive to these Galileans with their 
greater freedom from the bondage of traditionalism 
and casuistry. Hence, great multitudes followed him 
and waited with deep interest upon his ministry. But 
it was the small openminded group to whom he could 
more effectively unfold the great truths of life that 
especially attracted him and drew his constant atten- 
tion. His weapon was the truth. It was the truth 
that was to make men free; it was the truth that was 
to sanctify them—hence, his uppermost concern was 
with those who were really hungering for this bread of 
life. 


His DirFicuLtt TASK 


With their minds so habituated to their ancient rou- 
tine it was extremely difficult for the multitudes who 
flocked to hear Jesus to grasp this higher way of 
thinking and living. Even the inner circle, made up 
of his chosen disciples, were slow of heart in under- 
standing him. In the first place, they were men of 
mature age who, up to this time, had had very lim- 
ited opportunities for education and had been denied 

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contact with all the broader cultural influences. Minds 
thus neglected, and more or less impoverished up to 
the age of maturity, lose their flexibility and their 
power of insight and respond haltingly to all new truth. 
In addition to this, all Jewish people, with a few rare 
exceptions like the prophets and the poets, had the 
traditional habit of mind, a habit that at once resists 
the approach of fresh truth and thinks only in terms 
of the past. While this little company of disciples was 
no doubt made up of the best material Jesus could com- 
mand, still such limitations were an inevitable part of 
their heritage. Hence, Jesus proceeded upon the sound 
pedagogical principle of beginning where the mind of 
the pupil is found and gradually leading out toward 
the larger conceptions. Without attempting at once 
to destroy their misconceptions, he contented himself 
with unfolding his ideals little by little to their slowly 
awakening minds. His self-restraint is revealed in the 
words, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but 
ye cannot bear them now.” As a result of their mental 
limitations, many things that he said to them did not 
yield their deeper meaning until long after they were 
uttered. Thus it was that the truths concerning the 
kingdom he came to establish, while they were so ele- 
mental and so simply expressed, had slowly to ger- 
minate and develop in the minds of these men before 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





they could flower into the full conception of the won- 
derful “way of life’? which he came to reveal. 


BEGINNING OF OPPOSITION 


His ministry had not proceeded far until the crit- 
icisms and antagonisms of the Pharisees made it nec- 
essary for him to take sharp issue with their position, 
and with this system of thought and ritual he soon 
made a complete break. His view of God and of life 
was fundamentally at variance with those of Phar- 
isaism. To his mind God was to be interpreted as a 
Father, rather than a Lawgiver and Ruler. Right- 
eousness was to him a matter of motive and purpose, 
a condition of the inner life. To him religion was “the 
life of God in the soul of the individual.” These views 
were gradually working their way into the thinking 
of the disciples when the Pharisees discovered in this 
teaching the creation of a popular movement which, 
if allowed to grow, would inevitably end “fasting as 
a religious duty, make Sabbath observance vastly less 
strict, abolish the distinction between clean and unclean 
altogether, make stricter all teaching concerning mar- 
riage and divorce, lessen the influence of the oral law, 
give new importance to the masses and less to the pro- 
fessional classes, destroy the ultra-national character 
of the expected kingdom—a movement which, in a 


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word, would undo most of the political and social devel- 
opment which had made them the popular leaders.” 
As the very foundation of their world, therefore, 
seemed to be threatened, they threw themselves into 
open hostility to the new teacher and his religion. 
His being in Galilee at the outbreak of this hostility 
probably saved him from the immediate punishment 
they wished to inflict on him. Even at this distance 
from the center of Pharisaic influence they misrepre- 
sented him, hounded him, and in every possible way 
opposed his work. Jesus now attempted to enlarge his 
influence by sending out a group of chosen men to 
the various villages of Galilee that he would not him- 
self be able to visit, with the hope that these men might 
deposit in the minds of the people at large his ideas 
of God and the new kingdom. 

But the persistent work of the Pharisees succeeded 
in stirring up opposition which soon became so fierce 
that it seemed necessary for Jesus to abandon his work 
in Galilee. Taking his twelve chosen men with him 
he made a journey through Tyre and Sidon, thence 
into the Greek cities known as the Decapolis, and 
finally through Perea on into Judea. This persecu- 
tion became the occasion of his making it clear to his 
chosen group that in spite of this opposition of Jewish 
leaders, and the radical difference of their own former 

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expectations concerning the Messiah to the course he 
was pursuing, he was nevertheless the Christ. He thus 
drew from them a confession of their faith in him as 
the Messiah, telling them, in the meantime, of the 
sufferings he foresaw would grow out of this oppo- 
sition and insisting that their faith must be prepared 
to stand the fearful test. On this itinerary, memorable 
to these disciples, he ministered to men’s physical needs, 
paused to bring comfort to the distressed, and taught 
as men gathered in great multitudes or in small groups 
of anxious listeners. While in his ministry he was 
moved by his great compassion to give help whenever 
it was needed, all of this gracious work served as a 
revelation of God and of the character of those who 
were to be members of the new kingdom. 


FINAL VISIT TO JERUSALEM 


In the spring of A.D. 29, taking with him his 
twelve chosen apostles, Jesus went up to Jerusalem to 
the Passover, seemingly with the purpose of publicly 
declaring himself to be the Christ. As he approached 
Jerusalem he found himself the central figure of a 
great multitude from different parts of the country, 
all of whom were eagerly making their way to the 
Passover. Suddenly the entire multitude were seized 


with a strange enthusiasm for him and with a great 
HL 


rr SS 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 
ovation united in proclaiming him the Christ who was 
to come. Entering the city, he made his way to the 
Temple, cleansed it of its defilement growing out of 
traffic in animals for sacrifice and rebuked those who 
were responsible for thus desecrating the “house of 
prayer.” Some Bible scholars see in this incident the 
complete annulling by Jesus of the old Jewish sacrificial 
system. 

2. The outburst of popular favor that greeted him 
as he entered the city lifted him, in the eyes of the 
jealous officials, out of the class of merely radical 
teachers and invested him with the appearance of a 
dangerous revolutionist. The Sadducees united with 
the Pharisees therefore in planning to check the move- 
ment in its incipient stage by at once arresting Jesus 
and in some way ridding the country of him. Still 
he moved openly and unafraid about the city, inspiring 
his disciples with faith and courage, explaining to the 
spiritually hungry multitude the nature of the new 
kingdom and rebuking the rabbis for their persistent 
emphasis on trivial things while they neglected the 
weightier matters of the law. It was at this time that 
he gave some of his most illuminating parables and 
revealed some of the great creative principles of the 
kingdom of God. 

3. On the night following the Passover, while he 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





was alone with the apostles, he instituted the Lord’s 
Supper, which was to be observed by them and his 
future disciples as a perpetual memorial of his death. 
As the hostility toward him spread and increased in 
intensity his sensitive soul “was sore troubled” and 
he withdrew with his disciples into the quiet of Geth- 
semane, where he was later betrayed by one of them 
into the hands of his enemies. In the early morning 
he was brought before an irregular meeting of the 
Sanhedrin, and was hastily tried and condemned. 
He was then hurried before Pontius Pilate, the Roman 
governor of the province of Judea, for his approval 
of their sentence, and was there charged with being 
a dangerous revolutionist: ‘‘We found this man per- 
verting our nation, and forbidding to give tribute to 
Cesar, and saying that he himself is Christ a king.’ 
After much hesitation Pilate was led to confirm the 
judgment already passed by their irregular court and 
Jesus was turned over to the officers to be crucified. 
The sentence was carried into effect with dispatch, and 
before nightfall his body was in the tomb of Joseph 
of Arimathea. 

In the face of the cruel treatment of the mob that 
arrested him and of the jibes and insults hurled at 
him during the trial and while he was on the cross, 
Jesus’s bearing was so self-restrained, so lofty, so 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


super-human that a most profound impression was 
made, as voiced by the Roman officer in charge of 
the execution: “Truly this was the Son of God.” 

During his brief ministry Jesus had made an im- 
pression on his immediate followers that lifted him 
above all human teachers and leaders. Through his 
personality he had won a love and loyalty equaled by 
no other in human history. He had given men con- 
ceptions of God, ideals of character, and a radiant view 
of life that transformed them and bound them to him 
as leader and Saviour. 

But now that his friends had seen him die on the 
cross and his body placed in the tomb, they were so 
confused, so overwhelmed that they scattered aimlessly 
about, disorganized, disheartened, and hopeless as to 
the future of their movement. But on Sunday fol- 
lowing the Friday of his crucifixion something took 
place in the experience of his disciples that completely 
changed their mood, that drew them into a closer fel- 
lowship, and made them invincible witnesses to the fact 
that Jesus was the Christ. They declared that he had 
appeared to some of them alive and had talked with 
them. These experiences were repeated again and 
again until not only all of the apostles had seen him, 
but many others, including “more than five hundred 
brethren at once.” 


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The change that so quickly took place in the lives 
of these distraught disciples, thus re-making them into 
one of the most determined and confident groups that 
ever championed a great cause, has no other adequate 
explanation than this*experience of contact with their 
risen Lord. In the light of his resurrection, many of 
his sayings that they had been unable to understand 
now became luminous to their minds; and that he was 
the Son of God, the Christ who was to deliver them 
and bring in the kingdom, they never afterward for 
a moment doubted. 


QUESTIONS 


1. What were the leading characteristics of the Messianic 
expectations of the people when Jesus made his appearance? 

2. In what respect, up to the time of his public appear- 
ance, did the daily life of Jesus differ from that of other 
men? 

3. What was the significance of the forty days’ temptation? 

4. How did the teaching of Jesus differ from that of John 
the Baptist ? 

5. How did it differ from the teaching of the Pharisees? 

6. What is the difference between a religion of rules and 
a religion of principles? 

7. Was Jesus expecting a sudden transformation of the 
world, or a slow process of development? 

8. Why may we believe that the apostles chosen by Jesus 
to carry on his work were the best type of men within his 
reach? 


106 


ee  —— — 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


er ———— 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Farrar, The Life of Christ. 

Guover, The Jesus of History. 

STALKER, Life of Christ. 

PEAKE, Christianity, Its Nature and Its Truth. 
Dickey, The Constructive Revolution of Jesus. 


107 


VII 


BEGINNING OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 
AND: FALL’ OF THE JEWISH) STARE 


Ir was a small remnant of the people of Judea that 
accepted Jesus as Saviour. Judaism, therefore, as a 
religion and a system of thought was little influenced 
by the Christian community. The materialistic Mes- 
sianic views of the Pharisees and their sensational 
fanaticism made a more effective appeal to Judaism’s 
peculiar bent of mind and hastened it toward its tragic 
end. More and more Judaism conformed to the ideas 
and the spirit of Pharisaism. On every hand ambitious 
fanatics were arising and attempting to establish them- 
selves in positions of power by an appeal to this Mes- 
sianic hope. Pilate’s downfall was brought about by 
the appearance in Samaria of a self-styled prophet who 
was going to make known the hiding place of the 
sacred vessels that Moses was supposed to have hidden 
on Mount Gerizim. When multitudes of the Samari- 
tans assembled in response to his call, Pilate, through 
fear of an uprising, fell upon them, killing some and 
placing many in prison. Then when the Samaritans 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





complained to the authorities at Rome, Pilate was at 
once recalled and Marcellus was made procurator in 
his stead. 


ATTEMPTING TO PLACATE THE JEWS 


1, These Roman rulers of Palestine, discovering the 
inflammable condition of mind produced by this grow- 
ing Messianic expectancy, did all in their power to 
avoid antagonizing the Jews and used their utmost 
endeavor to placate them. It was this hope of pleasing 
the Pharisaical element that led Caligula to appoint 
Herod Agrippa, grandson of Herod the Great, as king 
over what was formerly the tetrarchy of Philip and 
the little tetrarchy of Lysanias. Agrippa was a man 
of unusual ability as a ruler and his history reads like 
a bit of romance. Because of his ability, and also 
through sharp political maneuvering, he was finally 
appointed king over all the territory over which Herod 
the Great had ruled. This reéstablishment of the king- 
dom of Judea, with an Asmonean Herod as king, 
awakened anew the hopes of the Pharisees and im- 
parted new life to Judaism. Herod was studiously 
respectful of the Jews’ religious sentiments and con- 
victions. He made Jerusalem his home, carefully ob- 
served all Jewish ceremonies, protected the sanctity of 
their synagogues, and forbade the stamping of por- 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


traits on the coinage used in the city. He also ap- 
pointed a high priest whom he knew to be acceptable 
to the Jews, and himself went to the temple and took 
part in the service. Thinking that he might further 
please the Pharisaic class, he attacked the struggling 
little Christian community, putting James the apostle 
to death and throwing Peter into prison. 

2. Along with these concessions to the religious 
prejudices and convictions of the Jews, the pagan side 
of Herod’s nature asserted itself, and at the dedicating 
of a great amphitheater which he had built, he at- 
tempted to entertain the people by having fourteen 
hundred criminals slay each other. It was possibly 
at one of these brutal exhibitions that he was suddenly 
and fatally stricken just after his admirers had paid 
him divine honor. His reign was a rather peaceful 
period in this later history of Judaism. His professed 
regard for the welfare of the nation and his intimate 
knowledge of their peculiarities enabled him to re- 
strain, to a degree, the fanaticism of the Jews and to 
promote a more normal and peaceful social order. 


CRUELTY OF PROCURATORS 


1. After the death of Agrippa the Romans ruled 
Judea through a line of procurators who, in character 
and administration, were worthy representatives of the 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





wicked Nero. The procurator was given all the powers 
of an ordinary governor, having command of a body 
of troops and possessing complete administrative and 
financial authority. His residence was at Caesarea, but 
on the occasion of feasts and other important func- 
tions that drew the multitudes to Jerusalem, he occu- 
pied Herod’s palace in that city, and every resident and 
visitor felt the pressure of his iron hand. Throughout 
the administration of these procurators the Jews had 
no voice in their own government—self-government 
perished—but that spirit of freedom that characterized 
the Jewish people still lived. Increasingly provoked by 
this high-handed disregard of their rights, this spirit 
began to manifest itself by breaking forth in numerous 
protests and revolts. The Roman officers in crucify- 
ing and otherwise putting to death the leaders in these 
uprisings only deepened the people’s hatred of Rome . 
and intensified their religious fanaticism. Zealots and 
impostors continued to make their appearance with all 
sorts of claims to miraculous power. One of these 
leaders proposed to divide the waters of the Jordan 
and conduct his followers into a freer and more 
desirable life. We are told of a certain Egyptian who 
claimed to be the Messiah and, gathering a crowd on 
the Mount of Olives, promised that he would make 
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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





the walls of Jerusalem fall. There were also bands of 
revolutionists, possibly made up of the lower classes, 
who marched through the country pillaging and de- 
stroying. Incipient anarchy was everywhere springing 
up; the whole country was full of unrest, priest wran- 
gling with priest, Jew quarreling with Jew, so that on 
every hand were signs of rebellion and a general state 
of chaos. This is the period of the reign of Felix and 
his successor, Festus, about whom special historic in- 
terest gathers because of their relation to the apostle 
Paul. 

2. The feeling against the Romans grew daily deeper 
with the Zealots and their sympathizers, as Roman re- 
strictions tightened about them. It is claimed that the 
procurator Florus tried to provoke them into open 
rebellion, and thus no doubt hastened their final upris- 
ing. But the ultimate destruction of Judea was directly 
due to the extreme Messianic party, and to the men 
among the poorer classes whom they led. This was 
the complete fulfillment of the destiny Jesus said 
awaited them if they persisted in their obdurate un- 
teachableness and in their materialistic conceptions of 
the Messiah’s reign. They were determined on estab- 
lishing the kingdom of God by force and they perished 
in their own folly. 


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FINAL BREAK WITH ROME 


The final break with Rome came when the priests 
refused longer to offer sacrifices to the Emperor, and 
turned on the Roman garrison and slew them. When 
the well-to-do and official classes among the Jews saw 
that they were facing war with Rome, they determined 
to organize the entire state on a revolutionary basis 
and this placed the Pharisaic party in immediate lead- 
ership. The whole movement was a political experi- 
ment, staged by those who had intense Messianic hopes. 
While the people of Jerusalem at large carried on the 
revolt, the Sanhedrin was without question the con- 
trolling body. Josephus, the celebrated Jewish his- 
torian, figured rather prominently in this revolution, 
as he had been appointed over Galilee by the Roman 
ruler. However, with his utter inexperience, he did 
little more than bustle about the country and subject 
himself to numberless dangers. Vespasian finally 
marched into Galilee, and, after conquering a number 
of her cities and fighting a battle upon the Sea of 
Galilee, in which many of the people were captured and 
slain, brought the whole of that little country under 
the power of his army. Then he marched into Samaria 
and on Mount Gerizim brutally slaughtered the Samar- 
itans. Thus almost the entire country north of Judea 

EES 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


was subdued, but the bands of Zealots escaped to the 
city of Jerusalem, already overcrowded with refugees 
and fanatics. 


CIvIL STRIFE 


At this point there is a sudden turn in this turbulent 
stream of history. Vespasian had entered with great 
vigor upon the second year’s campaign, but before he 
had time to do more than subjugate some of the border 
cities of Judea, Nero died and all hostilities of the 
great Empire temporarily halted. The Jews in Jeru- 
salem, thus relieved for the time of all danger from 
the Romans, began to wrangle among themselves. 
The moderates, led by prominent priests and rabbis 
on the one side, and the fanatical Zealots on the other, 
entered into a strenuous encounter. In the first con- 
test the moderates were successful, completely shut- 
ting up for a time the opposing force within the temple; 
and had it not been for the reverential regard they had 
for the temple, they might easily have destroyed them 
at once. Finally these Zealots engaged a company of 
Idumeans to come to their assistance and, presenting 
themselves at the gate of the city in the midst of a 
great storm, these Idumeans prevailed on the mod- 
erates to allow them to enter, and there at once began 
a reign of terror. All of the leading moderates were 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





mercilessly slain. In the name of the kingdom of God 
the city was for days scoured by robbers and murder- 
ers, until finally the Idumean band, discovering that 
they had been deceived, departed from the city. 

The contest had now resolved itself into a social 
upheaval as well as a Messianic movement and the 
revolt had become anti-aristocratic, the old hatred for 
the Sadducees and the rich bursting out in a consum- 
ing flame. After a while it developed that there were 
three revolutionary armies in the city, all contending 
for the mastery: the Galilean Zealots were occupying 
the Temple Mount, the Zealots from other parts of 
the country the inner court, and a company of wild 
men held practically the remainder of Jerusalem. The 
outer courts of the Temple were partly destroyed and 
the sacred timbers converted into means of war. Soon 
the Holy City took on the appearance of a desert. 


Tue SIEGE oF TITUS 


This reign of terror and misery continued through- 
out most of the year A.D. 69, and when Titus with 
his mighty army appeared before the gates of the city 
just before the Passover in A.D. 70, he found them 
so absorbed with their civil struggle that they had 
made no sort of preparation for defense against the 
Roman advance. At once began the long and desper- 

ibs 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





ate siege, lasting from April to September and char- 
acterized by unremitting and savage fighting. As the 
city was filled with visitors to the Passover, the suf- 
fering and general miseries of the siege cannot be 
imagined. Men weré crucified and cut to pieces, and 
streets and houses were filled with the bodies of the 
dead. Through all of this butchery the daily morning 
and evening sacrifices were offered until there was no 
priest left to officiate and no animal that could be 
offered; so on July 17 the last sacrifice was offered. 
Even Titus had hoped to save the sacred Temple, but 
a burning brand was thrown in through an open win- 
dow and soon the building was in flames. In Sep- 
tember A. D. 70, Rome’s persistence and might con- 
quered, and the historic city, so sacred to every Jew, 
lay in ruins at her feet. The most cruel treatment fol- 
lowed the conquest. Thousands who had lived through 
the siege were slain, or sold into slavery, while many 
were kept for the cruel gladiatorial games. Titus’s 
return to Rome was celebrated with a great triumph, 
and the arch which was later erected in his honor still 
shows the importance Rome attached to this victory. 
Thus the Jewish state was completely wiped out, and 
her destruction was due solely to the materialistic ideals 
of the Jews concerning the kingdom of God and the 
116 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 
unhappy choice they made of the means by which it 
was to be established. 


JupaismM Not Drap 


However, Judaism was not dead. While she was 
now left without country, or temple, or h‘gh priest, 
she still clung tenaciously to the Talmud and Messian- 
ism, and thus projected her religion with its ancient 
intensity and most of its peculiarities down through 
the generations. But the greatest achievement of Juda- 
ism was the contribution she unintentionally made to 
the rise of that other Messianic hope that, a generation 
before the fall of the Jewish state, had taken root in 
the hearts of a group of Galileans and later flowered 
into the Christian Church. While Judaism’s fanatical 
leaders were insisting that the long-looked-for king- 
dom could be established only by first making war to 
the death on Rome, the humble band of men who had 
accepted Jesus as the Christ and adopted his peaceful 
method of changing the world-order and making it 
his kingdom, were at this time hurrying into all the 
chief cities of the Empire and creating centers of influ- 
ence that were sending forth in all directions light and 
healing to a darkened and distressed world. When 
Judaism as a nation was destroyed, the Christian 
Church, with sublime assurance of final victory, was 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





gradually permeating the world with the truth and 
spirit of Jesus of Nazareth. 


BEGINNING OF THE CHRISTIAN CHUKCH 


1. The disciples who had been scattered and demor- 
alized by the death of their Leader were drawn to- 
gether in Jerusalem by their common experience with 
the risen Christ, and with his Great Commission echo- 
ing in their souls they began to feel their way toward 
some form of united endeavor. Regarding the num- 
ber twelve as having special significance with reference 
to the integrity of the body of apostles, they proceeded 
to choose a suitable man to fill the place made vacant 
by the death of misguided Judas. After council and 
prayer Matthias was selected, a man who had been 
associated with them “‘all the time the Lord Jesus 
went in and out” among them. Then on the day of 
Pentecost, while they were assembled in their place of 
prayer, there was a special manifestation of the pres- 
ence of the Spirit of God and they became possessed 
of an evangelistic impulse and spiritual fervor that 
sent them like flaming torches through the crowds 
gathered in Jerusalem at this Pentecostal season; and 
their courageous testimony, their glad tidings, and their 


persuasive appeal startled the multitudes and won thou- 
118 


EEE a 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 
Uhr stein i alls de 
sands to faith in Jesus as the Christ. Thus was begun 
the work of the Christian Church. 

2. Jesus had referred to his Church while he was 
in the flesh with his disciples, but had given no instruc- 
tion about the form of its organization. Evidently he 
saw that no particular kind of organization could be 
essential to its successful operation and hence all mat- 
ters of ways and means of carrying on his work were 
left wholly in the hands of his followers. There was 
therefore no thought at this early period of a certain 
form of church organization invested with an air of 
divine authority. Indeed throughout the apostolic 
period there was very little organization, and such as 
they had was so very elementary and fluid that changes 
and additions were readily made as conditions and 
needs called for them. 

3. The next step in the program of the apostles after 
the election of Matthias to the apostolate was the ap- 
pointment of the seven men to look after their collec- 
tions for the poor among them and see that the funds 
were wisely and justly distributed. 

4. That is a most beautiful picture the Acts of the 
Apostles gives us of the social life of the disciples 
following the Pentecostal experience. They lived to- 
gether in the most intimate family-like fellowship, with 
their religion as their bond of union and their one 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





absorbing interest. Their fine spirit of brotherhood, 
the gladness and radiant hopefulness their new reli- 
gious experience gave them, and their bold testi- 
mony to the resurrection of Jesus, attracted wide in- 
terest and daily drew many fellow Jews to the accept- 
ance of their victorious faith. But beyond the accept- 
ance of Jesus as the Messiah no effort was made upon 
the part of these disciples to change either the views 
or the customs of the Jews who thus affiliated with 
them. This no doubt added immensely to the force 
of their evangelistic appeal and made possible that 
peculiar “favor with all the people’ that especially 
characterized this early period. The little Christian 
community at this time was really a group of Jews, 
who, accepting Jesus as Messiah, remained perfectly 
loyal to all of the traditions and rites of the Jewish 
faith. Christianity, as the disciples understood it at 
this early period, was not a substitute for Judaism, 
nor indeed an addition to it; it was simply the rec- 
ognition of Jesus as the fulfillment of the Messianic 
hope. The great work of changing the existing world 
order and establishing in its stead the kingdom of 
God was still in the future, an event that was to take 
place after Jesus’ second appearance, which they were 
anxiously awaiting. This Jesus whom they had seen 
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net 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 
Ce ee ee etre 
ascend into heaven was soon to return and trium- 
phantly assert his Messianic power. 


ALL THINGS COMMON 


There developed a semi-communistic order of life 
among these early Christians which was possibly 
brought about in part by their ardent hopes of the 
immediate reappearance of Jesus and the inaugura- 
tion of the new kingdom. This highly expectant state 
of mind would naturally produce an attitude of com- 
parative indifference toward the everyday affairs of 
life—a condition of mind that a little later showed 
itself among some of Paul’s disciples and elicited from 
him a severe rebuke. To the members of this early 
group of Christians life’s significance now centered 
in intimate association and worship, and the Acts of 
the Apostles represent them as spending a large part 
of their time in joyous spiritual fellowship. As their 
Lord might appear at any time, they seemed to feel 
that their business was to keep themselves in a frame 
of mind to meet him, by social worship, the exchange 
of religious experiences, and blameless daily living. 
Just how long this peculiar social condition continued 
and what were its effects upon the disciples, the author 
of the Acts does not inform us. Through all of this 
early period they had a most vivid sense of the pres- 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





ence and influence of the Holy Spirit and were deeply 
conscious of his availability for them for special en- 
dowments and for meeting all responsible situations. 


HELLENISTS AS LEADERS 


Two men suddenly loom into prominence in this 
Jerusalem Church, Stephen and Philip. Only a little 
while ago they had been appointed among the seven 
who were to have charge of the Church’s charities, 
and now they suddenly appear as leaders in evangelic 
effort and possibly also in giving to the gospel mes- 
sage something of its larger significance. They were 
both Hellenists (Grecian Jews), and it seems likely 
that a more liberal culture, due to their surroundings 
in their earlier life, had so freed them from the tra- 
ditional bent of mind that they were able to grasp more 
readily than their brethren of Palestine the larger 
meaning of the Christian religion. It seems evident 
from the report Luke gives us of the charges made 
against Stephen that he had come to see that Chris- 
tianity was something vitally different from Judaism, 
and with all the self-restraint he might impose on him- 
self as he cautiously felt his way to the fuller expres- 
sion of this new way of life, it was inevitable that the 
implications of his teaching would soon excite criti- 
cism and finally open opposition. Fierce persecution 

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soon broke out, resulting in the trial and death of 
Stephen and in scattering abroad the great body of 
disciples—“‘except the apostles.” This, however, was 
so overruled as to work for the good of their cause, 
for these disciples, emboldened by Stephen’s testimony 
and triumphant death, went everywhere preaching the 
word; and the groups of disciples that later appear 
scattered over Palestine indicate the extent of their 
work and the effectiveness of their preaching. 

Barnabas, who was also a Hellenist, seems to have 
become a disciple early in the history of the Christian 
Church. Selling his material possessions, he invested 
his resources in the life of the Jerusalem Church and 
evidently became an effective leader in evangelistic 
work. He later became noted as the colaborer with 
Paul in his first great missionary journey out into the 
Roman Empire. 


QUESTIONS 


1. In what sense did the Jewish people themselves bring 
about the destruction of the Jewish state? 

2. How did their Messianic expectations contribute to this? 

3. Is not every form of religious fanaticism dangerous? 

4. Where did the peculiar views of the disciples concerning 
the early return of Jesus have their origin? 

5. What was the effect of these views on the early Church? 

6. In the beginning of their ministry what special subjects 
did the apostles emphasize in their preaching? 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





7. What relation did these early disciples sustain toward 
the Jewish Church? 

8. To what extent do you think they had grasped the higher 
significance of Christianity ? 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Gover, Conflict of Religions in the Roman Empire. 
Matuews, A History of New Testament Times in Palestine. 
Dickey, The Constructive Revolution of Jesus. 

PEAKE, Christianity, Its Nature and Its Truth. 
SCHWEITZER, Christianity and the Religions of the World. 


124 


Vill 


PAUL’S CONVERSION AND EARLY 
MINISTRY 


In the trial and death of Stephen and in the fierce 
persecution of the disciples that immediately followed, 
Saul of Tarsus appears in Luke’s account as the “‘mas- 
ter mind” and the leading spirit. Saul was the son 
of a devout Jewish family, of the tribe of Benjamin, 
and saturated with the Pharisaic view and spirit. 
Tarsus, the capital city of the province of Cilicia and 
one of the great literary centers of the Roman world, 
was his native city. It was widely known for its un- 
usual educational advantages and for its devotion to 
the pursuit of learning. An active, eager mind like 
that of young Saul could but be profoundly influenced 
by the very atmosphere of such a city, notwithstanding 
the fact that in his early youth he seems to have been 
sent to Jerusalem for his education. His pride in his 
native city indicates how he cherished the opportuni- 
ties and influences it made available to him in his 
earlier years. His cosmopolitan manners, his famil- 
jarity with all the habits of good society, and his 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


rather intimate acquaintance with the great currents 
of thought throughout the Roman world indicate the 
cultural effect of this city life on his boyhood and 
early youth. In all kinds of conditions in after life 
and in the midst of all sorts of people he felt himself 
at home and was master of every situation. Although 
a devoted Jew, he still had the wide interests of a 
Roman citizen and prided himself in his citizenship 
in this mighty Empire. His father was a Roman 
citizen, and possibly a man of wealth whose influence 
was felt in Tarsus. The Hellenistic atmosphere, there- 
fore, that thus surrounded Saul in his childhood had 
much to do in making possible in his later years his 
broader vision of life and his ready adaptability to 
the habits of thought of other minds. 


SAUL A DEvoTED HEBREW 


1. But in spite of all this, Saul was “‘a Hebrew of the 
Hebrews,” thoroughly imbued with the traditions and 
the extreme national and religious prejudices of his 
people. While still a youth he was sent to Jerusalem 
for his education and there, possibly for some years, 
sat at the feet of Gamaliel, the most celebrated Jewish 
teacher of that period. This careful rabbinic training 
determined his habits of thought throughout his life 
and reveals itself in his public appeals and in all of 

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his writings. His interpretation and enforcement of 
Old Testament scripture, as seen in his epistles, can- 
not be understood or properly evaluated without keep- 
ing in mind the fact that in his approach to the scrip- 
tures he habitually employed the methods of the rabbis. 

Thus Saul came to his manhood thoroughly trained 
in the Jewish habits of thought of his day and with his 
whole soul committed to the Pharisaic interpretation 
of the Old Testament and of life. With his aggressive 
personality he soon became one of the most zealous 
and bigoted defenders of his faith, He was a man 
of great tenacity of purpose and of most intense na- 
ture—‘‘the whole man was in every conviction and 
in every act.” He was therefore both by nature and 
by training a pronounced leader of men. After com- 
pleting his education in Jerusalem it seems that he 
went back to his native city of Tarsus and after some 
years of residence there, possibly serving as rabbi, he 
returned to Jerusalem sometime after the crucifixion 
of Jesus. To his penetrating mind it no doubt soon 
became evident that the implications of the teaching 
of Jesus, and of his more aggressive disciples like 
Stephen, were essentially and fundamentally antag- 
onistic to the views and religious customs to which 
he had dedicated all of his powers of mind and heart. 
Although these disciples were showing perfect loyalty 

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to the Jewish religion in their regular devotion to its 
rites and ceremonies, to Saul’s keener vision it became 
manifest that the necessary implications of this new 
teaching were altogether contrary to the views and 
mode of life for which Pharisaism stood. We may 
believe, therefore, that he quickly became critical toward 
these disciples and was watching for some declaration 
from them that would justify him in bringing charges 
against them. It is clear from Luke’s record, and also 
from the confessions Paul makes in his Epistle to the 
Galatians of his persecution of the early Church, that 
he was the leader in the trial and death of Stephen and 
in the terrible persecutions that immediately followed. 
His reference to the part he played in the trial of 
Stephen has been taken as evidence of Saul’s member- 
ship in the Sanhedrin that tried and condemned him. 
Paul himself declares that he gave his vote against 
him, and his prominence at his execution that led Luke 
to record the fact that “the witnesses laid down their 
garments at the feet of a young man named Saul” 
indicates his leadership. 

2, That is a most graphic account he gives us him- 
self of the furious persecutions he waged, following 
Stephen’s death: “For ye have heard of my manner 
of life in time past in the Jews’ religion, how that 
beyond measure I persecuted the Church of God, and 

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made havoc of it.” Elsewhere he is represented as 
“breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the 
disciples of the Lord.” We may therefore safely con- 
clude that it was Saul who started this wave of per- 
secution and who became the leader in the merciless 
attack upon both the men and women who accepted the 
new faith; and he was doing it “in all good conscience 
before God.” In his strict devotion to Pharisaism 
he felt it to be his religious duty to go to neighboring 
cities in his search for disciples of Jesus and to have 
the members of the pernicious sect put to death wher- 
ever they could be found. It was this sort of mission 
that was taking him to Damascus when his conversion 
occurred. 
SAUL’S CONVERSION 

1. The complete transformation in Saul’s life on 
this journey is one of the most remarkable in the 
record of human experience. We may get some in- 
sight into the spiritual processes leading to this change 
by keeping in mind the fact that he had started upon 
this journey some time after the death of Stephen. 
This martyr’s impassioned address and sublime mag- 
nanimity of spirit must have exerted a powerful influ- 
ence on Paul’s profoundly religious nature. Such an 
impressionable mind must have thought with deepening 
seriousness on the significance of a religion that could 


yee, 


ee ———————————— 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 
DORE SSRN A a lh ee 
produce such a testimony and create such a spirit, and 
this sort of a process of reflection would seem to be 
a psychological necessity to a change so radical and 
far-reaching in its effects. 

2. But whatever intellectual and spiritual processes 
may have prepared the way, when the change finally 
came in his experience it was sudden, profound, com- 
pletely revolutionary—old things passed away and all 
things became new. God spoke to him through Jesus 
of Nazareth and completely transformed him. After 
a conversion that involved a change in all of his reli- 
gious thinking it was to be expected that a man of 
Paul’s deep nature would be seized with a desire for 
a period of solitude in which he might think the whole 
matter through and properly orient himself in the new 
world into which he had been so suddenly born. His 
old philosophy, his theology, his ethics were all at 
variance with the new life that was now opening to 
him, and this general intellectual and spiritual up- 
heaval made his soul cry out for a period of uninter- 
rupted thinking alone with God. Hence he tells us 
that at once he went away into Arabia and the three 
following years seem to have been spent in solitude. 

3. Paul came out of this period of reflection and 
adjustment—a period in which he intimates he was 
under the direct tuition of Jesus—with a new concep- 


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tion of God, of personal salvation, and of the human 
family. He saw God no longer as a tribal deity, but 
as the Father of all men; he realized salvation as one- 
ness with God through the abiding presence of Jesus 
in the life of the individual, and he foresaw a renewed 
race bound together in a common experience and in a 
real brotherhood of mutual sacrificial service. Com- 
pletely mastered by these great Christian conceptions, 
he dedicated all his wonderful powers to their promul- 
gation, and with a determination and enthusiasm that 
no difficulties or dangers could check he began his great 
work of teaching and preaching. His early training, 
his superior education, his peculiar temperament, and 
his exhaustive investigation of the fundamentals of 
religion during his retirement in Arabia especially 
equipped him for interpreting to humanity at large 
the significance of Christianity and for becoming the 
leader in establishing permanently in the world the 
Christian Church. The Christian history of the latter 
half of the first century was largely determined by the 
teaching and work of this powerful man. 


PAuL’s First GREAT SERVICE 


1. Paul’s first signal service was in lifting Christian- 
ity out of the narrow limits of Judaic thought, by 
showing that it was, in the first place, the religion of 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





the spirit, that it had to do with the motives, the 
thoughts, the heart, rather than with rules and rites; 
and in the second place, that it was a world religion, 
concerned with the salvation of the human race rather 
than with any special family or nation. He was there- 
fore the one man fitted at this critical period for giving 
an adequate interpretation of Christianity, for becom- 
ing the leader in breaking down racial prejudice, and 
for leading men to see that Jesus was the Saviour of 
the world and the founder of a kingdom whose funda- 
mental principles were the fatherhood of God and the 
brotherhood of man. 

2. Paul’s persistent and usually patient effort to 
give to the apostles and early disciples his larger view 
of the significance of Christianity is one of the inter- 
esting phases of its early development. As it had been 
their high privilege to journey with Jesus while he 
was in the flesh and to be sent out by him as his wit- 
nesses, much tact and self-restraint were needed on 
Saul’s part in his attempt to lead them into his more 
exalted conceptions of the meaning and power of this 
new religion. They were, however, quite docile under 
the influence of Paul’s powerful personality, notwith- 
standing the extreme slowness with which they grasped 
his larger view and permanently adjusted themselves 
to it. They were persuaded to give their consent, if 


132 


Esa 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 
pL Se eee Ee eee 
not their hearty approval, to Paul’s missionary cam- 
paign in behalf of the Gentiles; but neither Paul nor 
the apostles themselves seemed to regard the Jerusalem 
Church as fitted for offering the gospel to the non- 
Jewish world. It was mutually agreed therefore that 
they would preach to “the circumcision,’ while Paul 
and a few chosen assistants would go unto the Gentiles. 


Tue REvIVAL IN ANTIOCH 


1. A great religious awakening in Antioch, through 
which many of the Gentiles were being converted to 
Christianity, offered the first occasion for the mani- 
festation to the original disciples of Paul’s peculiar 
power of adapting and applying the gospel to the Gen- 
tile mind. Report of the growing interest of the peo- 
ple of this great Gentile city in the religion of Jesus 
came to the Church at Jerusalem and they at once 
turned to Barnabas as the most capable man to direct 
the work in a field where many difficult questions would 
naturally arise. Barnabas was a Levite of the Island 
of Cyprus, who had accepted Jesus and identified him- 
self with the Jerusalem Church early in its history. He 
was evidently a man of superior breadth of mind and 
of thorough consecration to his new religion; hence his 
selection for this difficult task. He went forth alone 
to this responsible field; but when he had surveyed the 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





situation and discovered its possibilities, he at once 
departed for Tarsus to seek Saul that he might have 
his wise counsel and efficient assistance in this situa- 
tion, in which so much was involved. This decision 
proved to be most» fortunate and far-reaching in 
its results. The fourteen or fifteen years of experience 
Paul had already had in work among the Gentiles 
made it possible for him at once to give sane direction 
in the midst of the delicate and difficult problems of 
this mixed community, and the long and familiar inter- 
course of Barnabas with the apostles and original dis- 
ciples of Jesus gave him a fund of first-hand informa- 
tion about Jesus and his work that must have been of 
inestimable value at this time to Paul. 

2. Here for a full year they carried on their work, 
preaching to multitudes of both Jews and Gentiles and 
building up a strong and most aggressive Church. 
About the close of the year they received information 
concerning the large number in the Jerusalem Church 
who were in indigent circumstances, and the Antioch 
Church promptly made an offering for their relief and 
dispatched it to Jerusalem by the hands of Barnabas 
and Saul. This visit to the mother Church, with the 
bestowal of this large charity as its purpose, made this 
Church more immediately acquainted with Saul and 
his work and was a providential preparation for that 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





memorable council in which Paul won so completely 
the freedom of Gentile Christians from the bondage of 
Judaism. Upon returning to Antioch they took with 
them John Mark, a young disciple and a kinsman of 
Barnabas. According to early tradition he had been 
up to this time intimately associated with Peter; later 
he became the author of the earliest surviving life of 
Jesus. 
THE Missionary IMPULSE 

1. Soon after the return of Saul and Barnabas there 
was a general desire upon the part of the Antioch 
Church to undertake a great missionary campaign to 
the Gentile world. We can easily infer that Saul was 
the moving spirit in this new impulse and that his 
was the master mind in the meeting that was called 
to take the matter under consideration. As could eas- 
ily have been anticipated, Barnabas and Saul were 
chosen as the Church’s representatives in this new en- 
terprise, and after they had fasted and prayed they 
laid their hands on them and sent them forth. Saul 
and Barnabas agreed to take with them John Mark as 
their assistant. 

2. As Antioch was at this time a city of great com- 
mercial importance, it is reasonable to suppose that 
many of the members of this Church were men of 
large financial resources and that they gave to Bar- 


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a 
A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





nabas and Saul not only their prayers and good wishes, 
but also the needed material support for such a difficult 
undertaking, 


PAUL: BECOMES LEADER 


Up to this time Barnabas appears as leader, as he 
had come to Antioch from the mother Church and 
had brought in Saul as his assistant and coworker. 
But on this difficult and hazardous missionary enter- 
prise Saul’s more powerful personality and more 
ardent spirit naturally brought him to the front; and 
when they returned from this first journey, Paul was 
recognized by all, even by Barnabas himself, as the 
commanding spirit. Barnabas first led Saul and Mark 
to Cyprus, his native island home; and after “they 
had gone through the whole island,’ meeting with 
stout opposition and having very meager results, Saul 
becomes Paul, and Paul’s growing interest and deter- 
mination put him in command of the little company, 
and, following his lead, they at once struck northward 
into the—to them—unknown regions of Asia Minor. 
Paul, possibly from the beginning of this missionary 
enterprise, had Rome as his final objective. Recogniz- 
ing the significance of the cities as sources of influence, 
he had his eye on these great centers; hence his sudden 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





assumption of leadership and the energetic movement 
of the little band into the larger areas of Asia Minor. 


At PERGA 


Their first stop after leaving Cyprus was at Perga, 
an important commercial center of Pamphylia. It was 
here that John Mark forsook his comrades and re- 
turned to Jerusalem. The reason for his sudden 
change of mind is not given by Luke, but his leaving 
them so deeply affected Paul that it suggests a serious 
lack in him at this time of the high purpose and en- 
durance a great enterprise like theirs demanded. Leav- 
ing this city after only a short stay, Paul and Barnabas 
made their way over the Taurus Mountains and down 
into Antioch of Pisidia, an important political center 
of the province of Galatia. It is quite likely that it 
was in this city that Paul’s sickness, to which he later 
refers as “an infirmity of the flesh,’ overtook him and 
held him in this particular territory until he had 
preached the Gospel of Christ throughout the region 
of Galatia. There was in this city a large Jewish col- 
ony, whose religious life had attracted many of the 
more thoughtful Greeks. Going therefore soon after 
they entered the city to the synagogue to worship with 
this mixed company, it became easy for them to secure 
a sympathetic hearing. Hence, both the city and the 

137 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


surrounding country were quickly informed of their 
presence and eagerly attracted by this new message. 
Indeed, it was the popularity of their message that 
awakened opposition, for very soon the more conser- 
vative Jews “contradicted the things that were spoken 
by Paul and blasphemed.” 


REVISIT THE CHURCHES 


The method of work in Antioch, the bitter oppo- 
sition awakened among the Jews and the loyal disciples 
won, may be taken as characteristic of their work in 
all of these Galatian cities. After preaching in all the 
more prominent centers of Galatia, Paul and Bar- 
nabas, with their far-seeing sense of the need of effec- 
tive local organizations in order to conserve the results 
already achieved, turned back at Derbe and revisited 
the Churches recently formed that they might 
strengthen their newly won converts and more effec- 
tively organize them. Their purpose was to make a 
democratic brotherhood of each local group that could 
intelligently edify its members and become an active 
evangelistic force in the surrounding community. Cer- 
tain officers were appointed in each of these Churches 
to direct the work of the body and to teach them more 
fully the way of life. 

138 


ee — 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


ee  —————— 


THE JERUSALEM COUNCIL 


1. Finishing this work, Paul and Barnabas returned 
to Antioch, in Syria, to the Church that had sent them 
out, and there reported the success of their mission 
and the readiness of the Gentiles to receive the Gospel 
of Jesus. Sometime after their return the most crit- 
ical and serious situation in the history of the early 
Church developed. Certain Judaizing Christians from 
Jerusalem, “false brethren” as Paul designated them, 
came down to Antioch and taught that Gentiles could 
not be saved without receiving circumcision. As these 
teachers were directly from the Jerusalem Church 
where the apostles were naturally supposed to be the 
best interpreters of Christianity and its relation to 
Judaism, their dogmatic message awakened profound 
concern, if not excitement. Paul’s discerning mind at 
once discovered that the whole Christian movement 
was confronting a crisis. The position taken by these 
Judaizers involved a repudiation of the declaration for- 
merly made by the Jerusalem Church when Peter re- 
turned from his visit to Cornelius and reported the 
manifestations of the Spirit in this Gentile home. It 
was also a sharp rebuke to Paul and Barnabas, for in 
effect it declared that their preaching was a misrepre- 
sentation of the teaching of Jesus and of his Church. 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





If this view should prevail, Paul saw that it would 
carry consternation and dismay to all the Gentile 
Churches that had recently been established. It was 
quickly agreed therefore by the Church at Antioch that 
Paul and Barnabas, and other brethren, should go up 
to Jerusalem and confer ‘“‘with the apostles and elders” 
about this important matter. 

It is evident that Paul was most profoundly stirred 
by this dispute, and that he spent much time in thought 
and prayer as to the wise course to pursue, for he 
tells us he “went up by revelation.” He did not go 
to the settlement of this question simply as the ap- 
pointee of the Church at Antioch, but felt himself 
commissioned and directed by God himself. When 
he reached Jerusalem his usual wisdom is shown in 
his taking the matter up at once in private conference 
“with those who were of repute’; and, pressing the 
matter with his usual breadth of vision and ardor of 
spirit, he really won his victory before the council was 
assembled. When the council finally passed judgment 
the victory was sweeping. Paul was not given to 
boasting, but in writing of his position in this cru- 
cial gathering he says: ‘We stood out firmly... 
and did not yield even for a moment.” The vital 
truth of Christianity was at stake. Access to God 
through mere faith was about to be denied and there- 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





fore Paul could not stop short of throwing his whole 
mighty personality into the contest. His broader in- 
terpretation of Christianity prevailed and the liberty 
of Gentile Christians was secured. 

2. Soon after the adjournment of this conference at 
Jerusalem another phase of the question of Christian 
liberty arose, the occasion of which was a visit of 
Peter to the Church at Antioch. There were Jews in 
Antioch who mingled on the most intimate social terms 
with Gentile Christians. Peter, attracted by the beau- 
tiful spirit of fellowship that bound together these 
Jews and Gentiles, overcame all of his former scruples 
and mingled freely with them, eating with them and 
recognizing no social barriers. But when “certain 
came from James” he withdrew and refused further 
social fellowship with the Gentile Christians, and Bar- 
nabas and other Jews were drawn away with him. 
This raised at once the question of the social relation- 
ship of Jews and Gentiles in a Christian Church or 
community. These Judaizers from James insisted that 
their old law governing their contact with Gentiles must 
be observed with all strictness, while Paul openly de- 
clared that such a position destroyed the liberty they 
had in Christ and really made the death of Christ of 
none effect. The point at issue was of such vital im- 
portance that Paul felt called upon to make a most 

141 


rr Le 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


LL 


vigorous protest, and he tells us that he publicly re- 
buked Peter for the position he had taken. This inct- 
dent reveals the fact that the brethren at Jerusalem 
had not yet grasped the full significance of mere trust 
in Christ and the gracious liberty involved in the Chris- 
tian life, while to Paul’s mind it was clear that loyalty 
to Jesus was the only condition of salvation, and the 
one bond of Christian fellowship. 


QUESTIONS 


1. What idea do you get from the New Testament of the 
training and instruction Paul received in his father’s home? 

2. How was he influenced by the city in which he was 
brought up? 

3. What must have been the character and spirit of the 
education he received at the feet of Gamaliel in Jerusalem? 

4. What were his temperament and character when he 
came to manhood ? 

5. In the fierce persecutions he carried on against the 
early disciples are we to regard him as a sincerely religious 
man? 

6. Why did he so quickly become a leader in the persecu- 
tion of the Christians? 

7. What was likely the human instrumentality in his con- 
version? 

8. What was the significance of his retiring into Arabia 
just after his conversion, and what was the effect of this 
retirement on his views and life? 

9. Why did Barnabas decide on Paul as the needed helper 
in the Antioch revival rather than one of the apostles? 


142 


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BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Ramsey, Paul the Traveler and Roman Citizen. 
Farrar, The Life and Work of St. Paul. 
STALKER, Life of Paul. 


143 


CHAP TE Kio. 
PAUL THE GREAT MISSIONARY LEADER 


Wir8 this disturbing and threatening controversy 
concerning Christian liberty, that struck so deeply at 
the very vitals of Christianity and that involved the 
very continuance of the work he had begun among Gen- 
tiles, settled, Paul returned to Antioch with an urgent 
impulse to take up once more the world-wide task to 
which he had committed himself. As he and Barnabas 
were planning their campaign a difference of view 
developed between them with regard to the wisdom 
of taking with them on such a trying adventure John 
Mark, who had forsaken them on their former jour- 
ney, and that possibly at a time when his loyalty and 
assistance were most needed. As they failed to agree 
about this matter, Barnabas took Mark and set sail for 
Cyprus, while Paul, with Silas as his companion, 
started on his great mission. This was about the year 
49 A.D. 

From this time on we know little of the life and 
work of Barnabas. There is a tradition that, after 
spending some time in Cyprus, he went into Egypt; 
and, as Egypt early became quite an important Chris- 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





tian center, Barnabas may have laid there the founda- 
tion of the Christian Church and devoted the remainder 
of his life to its wpbuilding. 

In the Acts of the Apostles Paul appears as the a one 
towering figure in Christian missions. With Silas he 
first went through Syria and Cilicia, no doubt revisit- 
ing the scenes of his earlier ministry that he might 
strengthen the Churches that were the first fruits of 
his missionary endeavor. He then hastened, with pecul- 
iar eagerness, into Galatia, that inviting field in which 
he had formerly labored under the trying restrictions 
of his bodily afflictions. The book of Acts gives us a 
very fragmentary account of Paul’s work on both his 
first and second visits to this interesting field, but the 
Epistle to the Galatians supplies much desired infor- 
mation and suggests the eagerness of Paul to be again 
among these people. It is evident from the recent dis- 
turbance at Antioch that the Judaizers at this time were 
very zealous in their efforts to discount and modify the 
teachings of Paul and that they had hurried into Gala- 
tia to poison the minds of these devoted followers and 
friends of the apostle. There are good reasons for 
believing that a report of their destructive work came 
to Paul while he was yet at Antioch and that he at 
once wrote and dispatched to them the Epistle that 
bears their name. This Epistle is full of fire and pas- 

145 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


sion, and the Apostle was no doubt deeply anxious to 
know what effect it had produced on these disciples 
for whom he had such a tender love. The letter seems 
to have had the desired effect, as Paul was received 
with the greatest cordiality and we have no intimation 
of any defection from the faith. 


PauL FINps TIMOTHY 


While in Galatia Paul had the good fortune to find 
the young man Timothy, who came to mean so much 
to him personally and was of such value to him in 
organizing his Churches and carrying on his work. 
Timothy so heartily accepted the gospel and revealed 
such fine qualities of character that Paul at once chose 
him as one of his more intimate helpers and in this 
relationship he continued through all of that future 
arduous round of missionary endeavor. For the most 
delicate and difficult tasks in the administration of the 
Church Paul felt that he had ‘no man likeminded”’ 
upon whom he could rely, and in his last days in the 
Roman prison it was this fine soul and loyal friend for 
whom he longed. 


DIVINE GUIDANCE 


Paul had a very profound sense of the presence and 
guidance of the Holy Spirit, not only in unusual sit- 
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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





uations, but in all the ordinary experiences in which 
man’s moral nature is involved. While on these great 
missionary journeys he kept his mind open to divine 
impressions so that his direction and destination were 
determined by the Spirit’s influence on his sensitive 
soul. Instead, therefore, of going from Galatia to 
Ephesus as he had originally planned, he was, for some 
reason, “forbidden of the Holy Ghost to speak the 
word in Asia.”’ So northward, then westward he trav- 
eled, ‘not knowing whither he went,” till he came to 
the city of Troas on the A*gean Sea. With all of this 
heathen country in such urgent need of his gospel, with 
his unusual sense of self-reliance and with his passion 
for preaching, this long journey from Pisidian Antioch 
to Troas without stopping to make his appeal is a most 
remarkable manifestation of submission to the lead- 
ership of the Holy Spirit. It seems likely from the 
“we” passages in the Acts, beginning at this point in 
the narrative, that in Troas Paul met Luke, “the 
beloved physician,’ who made an appeal to Paul 
to carry his gospel over into Macedonia. At any 
rate, in a dream he heard a voice calling to him, 
“Come over into Macedonia, and help us,” and when 
he awoke he was sure that God was calling him to go 
into that field. Whatever thought Paul may have had 
of ultimately giving the gospel to Europe, it seems 
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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





reasonable to suppose that that far-away field had no 
place in his program until the Church was established 
throughout Western Asia. But after being so clearly 
led by Providence to change his plan and enter this 
field, he was prepared to press forward without waver- 
ing through all sorts of opposition and suffering. 


IN MACEDONIA 


Immediately therefore Paul “sought to go forth into 
Macedonia.” How his discerning soul must have been 
impressed with the possibilities before him! Here was 
the charmed circle in which civilization for ages had 
been nourished. Just before him lay Greece and Rome, 
out of which had come the culture, the learning, the 
laws, and the armies that had controlled the world. 
Here were intrenched the superstitions and false reli- 
gions of the ages and on every hand was to be seen 
the blight of their corrupt morals. What a challenge 
it must have presented to this hero’s faith and to his 
unconquerable purpose! As he crossed into Macedonia 
he had for his companions Silas, Timothy, and Luke, 
and they made their way directly to the important city 
of Philippi. The beginning of the work of these mis- 
sionaries in this proud city was most humble and un- 
promising. 

In following his usual custom of beginning his 


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a ————— 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 

work in a new field with the Jewish people, where 
he discovered that they had no synagogue, he was 
led on the Sabbath day to their accustomed meeting 
place by the riverside outside the walls of the city, 
where was assembled for worship a small group of 
women. The author of the Acts gives us a very meager 
report of the results of Paul’s work in Philippi, but 
it is evident from our New Testament Epistle ad- 
dressed to this Church that it had a strong member- 
ship and that it had particularly endeared itself to the 
heart of the apostle. His work therefore must have 
been most successful. By healing a maid “possessed 
with a spirit of divination” Paul brought on himself 
the wrath of her masters when they saw that the 
source of their gain was gone and, dragging Paul and 
Silas before the magistrates, they had them condemned, 
severely beaten, and cast into prison. A miraculous 
deliverance from this imprisonment not only strength- 
ened the faith of these daring missionaries, but also 
made a deep impression on the authorities and gave 
them a notable convert in the person of the jailer. 

2. From such a beginning Paul carried forward his 
work in Macedonia with unabating zeal and vigor 
until he had planted the Church in all the leading cen- 
ters of that interesting country. While Luke gives 
account of his work only in Philippi, Thessalonica, and 

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Bercea, it is evident from the first Epistle addressed 
to the Thessalonians that the Church was established 
generally throughout the province. In Thessalonica 
Paul met with bitter persecution from the Jews, thus 
making it necessary for him to hasten out of the city; 
but in his work in general in Macedonia the Judaizers 
who so sorely tormented him in Galatia seem not to 
have troubled him. His labors throughout the prov- 
ince were especially successful and the Churches he 
established were peculiarly dear to him. 

As Paul’s method of evangelizing was largely the 
slow hand-to-hand process of dealing with the indi- 
vidual, and with small groups, in a strictly personal 
way, he must have spent a considerable period in estab- 
lishing Christianity throughout this province. But it 
is obvious from his Epistles that it was for him a 
period of joy and profound satisfaction. The evidence 
was overwhelming that the gospel of Jesus thoroughly 
satisfied the Greek mind and met all the longings and 
needs of the Gentile heart. It must also have greatly 
rejoiced him that Christianity was no longer confined 
to Jerusalem or to a single nation, but was now be- 
coming a world religion. 

3. Paul’s work in Macedonia also gave him the 
opportunity of training a most efficient staff of co- 
workers. Four of these, Sopater, Aristarchus, Secun- 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 
UD Ee A 
dus, and Gaius, were all native Macedonians, Timothy 
alone coming from outside this field. Paul was also 
especially successful in realizing his purpose of mak- 
ing the local organization in these various communi- 
ties an active and effective body for the extension of 
the gospel into surrounding territory. 


At ATHENS 


Forced by opposing Jews to leave Bercea, Paul was 
conducted by a company of friends into Achaia and 
then made his way directly to Athens. Aside from his 
great evangelizing purpose, Athens must have had pe- 
culiar attractions for him. Although it did not at this 
time have the political power and the cultural prom- 
inence of an earlier age, it still maintained its mate- 
rial splendor and was invested with something of the 
charm of its ancient glory. It profoundly interested 
Paul, and, from his address later we can see him walk- 
ing through its streets, visiting its places of interest, 
and noting especially the evidences of its idolatry. 
Here he is in the original home of culture and worldly 
wisdom, and yet a city so spiritually benighted that it 
was said sarcastically, “It is easier to find a god in 
Athens than a man.” Paul’s great nature was pro- 
foundly stirred when he saw the city thus wholly 
given up to idolatry, and he must have longed for an 

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opportunity to show this pagan people “the sweet rea- 
sonableness” and moral beauty of the religion of Jests. 
Meeting for a time with the Jews in their synagogue 
and reasoning with those who met him in the market- 
place, what seemed to be a larger opportunity pre- 
sented itself when some of the Stoics and Epicureans 
led him to the Areopagus and demanded that he tell 
them what his strange teaching meant. With marvelous 
skill and most refined tact he attempted to give them 
an insight into the fundamental things of his religion. 
But when he touched on the final judgment and the 
resurrection of Jesus from the dead they mocked and 
jeered and broke up the assembly. There were, how- 
ever, a few teachable souls who believed the message 
of the apostle and became loyal disciples. 


CorINTH 


1. As the ungracious reception given his address 
at Athens was not encouraging to his eager soul, and 
as the general lightness and superficiality of the people 
did not promise favorable soil for the great serious 
truths of Christianity, Paul hurried on west to Corinth, 
one of the most important commercial centers in the 
entire Roman world. It was one of those rich, cos- 
mopolitan cities which easily develop all sorts of cor- 
ruption and shameless profligacy. It was a most stra- 

152 


Le 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


ee 


tegic center for Paul’s work, for ideas released here 
would easily circulate throughout the Roman world. 
Scorned, imprisoned, beaten with rods in the cities 
through which he had recently passed, he entered 
Corinth with his usual unshaken purpose and with his 
unconquerable faith in the power of his message. It 
was about the year 50 A.D. when he began his work 
in Corinth, and for a year and a half he poured out 
the energies of his great soul in planting here the 
Christian Church. His early acquaintance after reach- 
ing the city with two Jews recently come from Rome, 
Aquila and his wife Priscilla, had happy results for 
both his comfort and his work, and doubtless far- 
reaching effects through the information given him 
of real conditions in Rome and in stimulating his de- 
sire to visit the capital of the Empire. As they seem 
to have been Christians when Paul met them, and were 
doubtless therefore led into the Christian life while 
yet in Rome, there is here the suggestion of an active 
Christian community at this early period in the impe- 
rial city. 

2. Corinth was in a peculiar sense a cosmopolitan 
city. Being a great commercial center, it had attracted 
people of all races and all faiths, and there was the 
license and the profligacy that usually characterize such 
a commingling of diverse human elements. It is likely 


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that Paul had never faced such extreme wickedness. 
He seemed to feel at once that his message was here 
to meet its severest test. We are warranted in infer- 
ring from his first Corinthian Epistle that he pon- 
dered most earnestly the question of the most effective 
approach to a community so steeped in vice, so mas- 
tered by the material. Finally he determined to attack 
at once their gross carnality and set over against it in 
sharp contrast the life of the Spirit. The crucified 
Jesus was his theme. There must be brought about 
the death of the carnal nature and a resurrection into 
the life of the Spirit, and this could be done only 
through the divine Christ. There were no other means 
available or conceivable for lifting them out of their 
moral corruption into the life of the Spirit. But in this 
gospel was the complete dynamic for righting all 
wrongs and for making perfect adjustments in all of 
life’s relationships. When the soul was joined in in- 
telligent loyalty to the Lord, all moral and spiritual 
problems would be solved in harmony with the will 
of God. 

3. Paul’s work in Corinth was abundantly success- 
ful, and he built up a most flourishing Church. While 
the majority of his converts were no doubt drawn from 
the humbler classes, yet there were some from the more 
highly favored social element and some who were pos- 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


aaa, 


sessed of wealth. But the peculiar credential of Paul’s 
religion was in its power to lift a great company of 
men out of the vices of the submerged classes and 
transform them into a serious-minded, decent body 
of people, whose controlling desire was to know and 
do the will of God. 


In EPHESUS 


1. From Corinth Paul took Aquila and Priscilla 
and hastened to Ephesus, which was one of the great 
centers toward which he had been looking from the 
time he started on this journey. But for some reason 
he suddenly determined to make a hurried trip to 
Syria; so leaving Aquila and Priscilla in Ephesus, he 
sailed to Czesarea and thence to Antioch. After a 
short stay at this great missionary center, from which 
he was originally sent forth, he started back to his 
field of operation, visiting on his way the Churches 
he had already established in Galatia. After revisit- 
ing the scenes of his earlier ministry and strengthening 
the brethren with the reports of the marvelous results 
attending his labors, he made his way back to Ephesus, 
the great Capital of the Roman province of Asia. It 
was in the midst of one of the largest, richest, and most 
thickly settled of the Roman provinces, and great high- 
ways ran out in every direction to other important 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





provinces and cities. In many respects it was the most 
important center in which Paul had yet worked. More 
than a century before his visit special religious priv- 
ileges had been granted the Jews of the city by the 
Romans, permitting their religious rites, giving them 
the privileges of their Sabbath, and protecting them 
in their special pilgrimages to Jerusalem; and all of 
these privileges had been continued down to this time. 
It is not surprising therefore that Paul found at 
Ephesus a strong, prosperous Jewish community. This 
city was noted for its devotion to magic and the various 
quackeries that had come down from the ancient reli- 
gions ; and, as we might expect, there were many Jews 
who for purely mercenary reasons carried on these 
magical arts. Here all the religions of the world were 
found, and so long as their votaries did not interfere 
with vested material interests, every man was free to 
teach whatever religion he pleased, and he was sure 
to have interested hearers. 

2. Paul’s ability to adapt himself to unusual condi- 
tions again manifests itself. It was the custom here 
with all classes to begin work with the rising of the sun 
and to finish the day’s work at eleven o’clock in the 
morning. Paul engaged the hall of one of the public 
rhetoricians or philosophers, and devoting himself to 
his trade as a tentmaker during the working hours of 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


the people, he spent the afternoons unfolding his gospel 
to groups of listeners. In this atmosphere, so hospi- 
table to all cults and forms of thought, Paul must have 
been able to give his message to a vast number of 
people. 

3. The first notable opposition to his work, accord- 
ing to Luke’s account, came from a band of organized 
workmen. There was a votive image used in their wor- 
ship. It was left within the sacred precincts of her 
temple as an offering to the goddess Diana. Many of 
these were made of gold and constituted a profitable 
line of work for a large number of men. When these 
men saw Paul’s growing popularity, it occurred to them 
that his form of religion would turn people away from 
the goddess and thus cause them to lose their trade. 
They were at once transformed into a mob and threw 
the whole city into an uproar. The town clerk, dis- 
covering the trouble, nobly defended Paul and scattered 
the mob before they had a chance to do him bodily 
harm. From some declarations in his epistles we are 
to infer that Luke by no means mentions all of the 
troubles and hindrances Paul had while he was in 
Ephesus. Paul says himself he fought with beasts at 
Ephesus, and it is thought by some Bible students that 
this is to be taken literally—that he was actually thrown 
into the amphitheater and, for the amusement of the 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





crowd, forced to defend himself against the attack of 
enraged wild beasts. If this is not literally true, then 
he must have been in the hands of an infuriated mob 
that was equally as merciless as would have been 
the wild beasts. There is no doubt that he met with 
the bitterest opposition and the most merciless persecu- 
tion, at least near the close of his campaign in Ephesus. 

The thoroughness of his work in this great city and 
the permanence of the results may be seen in the fact 
that in succeeding centuries this was one of the greatest 
strongholds of Christianity. 


Pauw’s Errort to MAINTAIN THE UNITY 
OF THE CHURCH 


1. Paul now determined to hasten back to Jerusalem. 
We may discover two reasons in his mind for this res- 
olute purpose. The first was the fulfillment of the 
promise formerly made to the Church at Jerusalem to 
remember the many dependent members of their body. 
It seems that he had a large offering which he had se- 
cured for this purpose and he considered it wise to de- 
liver this fund himself into the hands of the Jerusalem 
officials, as this would be a material expression of his 
interest and loyalty toward the mother Church. He 
had a great desire to establish and make permanent the 
oneness of the Church which was to him “the body of 

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Christ.’’ It was, therefore, as the first great champion 
of Christian unity that Paul made this difficult and 
dangerous journey to Jerusalem. The other considera- 
tion that prompted this determination was the fact that 
the great Day of Pentecost was approaching and his 
heart was set on being there on that important occasion. 
It was the harvest feast and it brought to the sacred 
city a multitude of Jews from all parts of the world. 
This would therefore give him the opportunity of dem- 
onstrating to these foreign Jews the unity of Christ’s 
followers and his standing with the apostles and elders 
at Jerusalem. With these important objectives beckon- 
ing him, the threats of enemies and the entreaties of 
friends were powerless in turning him from his 
purpose. 

2. While the leaders at Jerusalem received Paul 
with a show of friendliness, it was evident that there 
were suspicions concerning his attitude toward the 
Jewish law. With hope of removing these suspicions, 
Paul acceded to the advice of the apostles and associated 
himself with four men who had taken a vow, and 
agreed to pay their expense in the sacrifice demanded. 
This in the end proved most unfortunate. A company 
of Jews from Asia, who had doubtless antagonized his 
work in one of the great eastern centers, stirred up the 
multitude and attempted to take the law in their own 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





hands and kill him. His declaration that he was a 
Roman citizen secured him immediate protection, but 
he was bound and held as a prisoner by Roman 
authorities. 

3. This was the-beginning of a long period of im- 
prisonment. As certain of the Jews were planning to 
seize him and slay him, the Roman officers determined 
to send him to Cesarea for protection until his case 
could be regularly heard by the proper authorities. In 
due course of time he appeared before Felix, the gov- 
ernor of the province, who heard the accusations made 
against him and then gave Paul full opportunity to 
answer the charges and vindicate himself. Paul’s an- 
swer was direct and comprehensive and was a notable 
exhibition of masterful oratory. Wishing to avoid 
antagonizing the Jews, Felix deferred his decision, and 
at the end of two years, when he was removed from 
office, Paul’s case was still pending, and he was “in 
bonds” as a prisoner. Festus, who succeeded Felix, 
was immediately importuned by “the chief priests and 
principal men” to have Paul brought to Jerusalem for 
trial, hoping to apprehend him on the way and put him 
to death. Festus denied their request; but later, when 
he called Paul before him in Czsarea and discovered 
that the charges had to do with Jewish rites and cus- 
toms, concerning which he had very little knowledge, 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


he expressed a desire to have the case taken to Jeru- 
salem for trial. But knowing the danger of falling 
into the hands of hostile Jews and at the same time 
failing to be inspired with confidence in Festus, Paul 
appealed to Czesar for the final disposition of his case. 


BEFORE AGRIPPA 


While Paul was waiting to be dispatched to Rome 
for his trial an episode occurred that reveals the sig- 
nificance attached to him as a prisoner. While King 
Agrippa II was making a visit to Festus, the latter in- 
formed him of his notable prisoner and of his per- 
plexity of mind with regard to his case, and King 
Agrippa immediately expressed a desire to hear him. 
While nothing of value developed in this hearing, either 
to Paul’s cause or to Felix’s report to the court of 
Czesar, it gave to Paul an opportunity for a memorable 
defense of the Christian religion. 

Luke gives us a classical story of Paul’s voyage to 
Rome, with a detailed account of the furious storm and 
the accompanying shipwreck. He quickly won the 
esteem of the Roman officers in charge of him and in 
the midst of the storm his calmness of spirit and his 
commanding personality made him easily master of the 
panic-stricken crew. 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


—— nn 


A PRISONER AT ROME 


1. Word having been received by the Christian com- 
munity in Rome of Paul’s coming, they determined to 
send a delegation to meet him and, after his long im- 
prisonment and trying voyage, it deeply moved his 
heart when, forty or fifty miles out of the city, these 
Christians so cordially and sympathetically greeted him. 

2. While here awaiting his trial he was allowed to 
live in his own hired house, a privilege possibly secured 
him through the friendly centurion who guarded him 
on his voyage. Friends and visitors had free access to 
him, and thus for two years in this prison home he 
preached and taught the gospel. Soon after his arrival 
in Rome he called together leading Jews from the city 
and stated fully his case to them, evidently with the 
hope of securing their confidence and their sympathetic 
support. The majority of them listened with cold re- 
serve, but expressed a desire to hear him again concern- 
ing his religious views. On a day appointed a great 
company of them came together, and Paul, with his 
usual passion for his own people, attempted to persuade 
them that Jesus was the Messiah of the prophets. 
While some accepted his teaching, the larger number 
stubbornly rejected it. During the two years of his im- 
prisonment his “hired house” was a sanctuary toward 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


which sin-sick individuals and groups hungering for the 
bread of life turned for help and found healing and 
food for their souls; and from it in the form of his 
Epistles went streams of life-giving truth that have 
through the centuries been for the healing of the 
nations. 

3. There is a sense of disappointment in the abrupt 
ending of Luke’s account of this closing period of the 
apostle’s life, but its abruptness is suggestive of what 
actually occurred. Had he won his case at the court 
of the Emperor, we may believe that Luke would have 
eagerly recorded it, since throughout his narrative there 
is an evident desire to keep prominent the fair and 
friendly attitude of Rome toward the apostle. There 
are Bible scholars who insist that Paul was at this time 
released and for quite a while afterward carried on ex- 
tensive missionary work, planting the gospel in Spain 
and possibly in other sections of Europe. There is a 
tradition to this effect, but that tradition did not arise 
till near the end of the second century and is altogether 
without corroboration. There may be some historic 
facts difficult for us to explain from either the one or 
the other of these standpoints, but the weight of the 
evidence seems to point to his death in Rome in 57 or 
58 A.D. in the early part of the reign of Nero, 

From the beginning of Paul’s work as the apostle 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


to the Gentiles to the close of his eventful life he was 
the outstanding promoter of the integrity and growth 
of the Christian Church. He outlined its great doc- 
trines, he made explicit its great ethical standards, he 
awakened in it a sense of its responsibility as an organ- 
ization, he illustrated to it in his own life of sacrificial 
service the significance of the Great Commission and 
he pleaded with the passion of one of the old prophets 
for the unity of the Church on the one basis of faith 
in the historic Jesus as the Saviour of the world. He 
elevated the Church above all Levitical ceremonial and 
freed it from all priestly assumptions and usurpations. 
He emphasized its democratic spirit and magnified the 
easy way of approach it opens to God through Christ 
for the humblest and most unworthy soul. He made 
luminous the idea that this Church is the body of 
Christ, an organism that receives its life directly from 
contact with him, and that in turn becomes the means 
through which he manifests himself to the world. In- 
deed so vital was Paul’s relation to the Church that 
its history, up to the time of his death, is in a peculiar 
sense the history of his life and leadership. 


QUESTIONS 


1. What was the difference of view concerning the meaning 
of Christianity between Paul and the first disciples ? 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





2. Was this difference fundamental in the interpretation of 
Christianity ? 

3. What would have been the result to Christianity if the 
Judaizers had won in the council at Jerusalem, and in the 
later controversy between Paul and Peter? 

4. Was the decision of the council at Jerusalem a compro- 
mise, or are we to understand from Paul’s account of it that 
his interpretation was absolutely accepted? 

5. In what respects was Paul peculiarly suited to lead in 
giving the gospel to the Gentile world? 

6. Why did Paul put himself to so much trouble in trying 
to keep up friendly relations with the mother Church at 
Jerusalem? 

7. Did he emphasize a particular system of doctrine, or a 
special form of ecclesiasticism as necessary to the unity of 
the Church? 

8. Upon what single relationship did he base the unity of 
Christ’s followers? 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Ramsey, Paul the Traveler and Roman Citizen. 
WEINEL, St. Paul the Man and His Work. 
Jerrerson, The Character of Paul. 


165 


CHAD THRR 


THE CHRISTIAN CHURGHTAS (AN 
ORGANIZATION 


CARLYLE asked, “How did Christianity rise and 
spread among men? Was it by institutions, and estab- 
lishments, and well-arranged systems of mechanism? 
No! . . . It arose in the mystic deeps of man’s soul: 
and was spread by ‘the preaching of the word, by 
simple, altogether natural and individual efforts; and 
flew like hallowed fire from heart to heart, till all were 
purified and illumined by it. Here was no mechanism; 
man’s highest attainment was accomplished dynamic- 
ally, not mechanically.” 

It has already been shown that Jesus made no at- 
tempt toward effecting an ecclesiastical organization. 
He selected a group of disciples “that they might be 
with him” in the easy and unconventional intercourse 
of brotherly fellowship prompted by the one desire of 
learning from him the truths and the spirits of his reli- 
gion. Binding men to him in this intimate and easy 
fellowship was the immediate objective in Jesus’s min- 
istry. His claim to their loyalty was based on the 
unique winsomeness and commanding power of his per- 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





sonality, and it is evident that he would have been dis- 
appointed at the first appearance of a cold, formal or- 
ganic life in this group of intimate friends. He was 
profoundly interested in the individual who was ear- 
nestly seeking the light of life and he wanted, therefore, 
to live the most unrestrained and natural life in com- 
munion and fellowship with those who had left their 
all to follow him. “One loving spirit sets another on 
fire.” Jesus saw this and he longed for the privilege 
of setting each one of this group on fire through this 
personal contact, and in turn of seeing each of them 
exert a like influence on other needy souls. Hence his 
work began and continued through his ministry alto- 
gether without social or ecclesiastical machinery. He 
instituted baptism and the eucharistic feast and com- 
manded that they should be perpetual ordinances with 
his followers, but their administration was no more a 
restricted official privilege than was teaching or leading 
in prayer. This is a feature in the ministry of Jesus 
that is often overlooked in an age in which men mag- 
nify mere machinery and look to it mainly for results 
in their effort to save the world. 

The men who had been associated with Jesus as his 
apostles did not regard themselves, after Jesus left 
them, as clothed with any sort of official authority over 
their brethren, or indeed as having been invested with 


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official functions. It seems quite clear from the record 
that they held no official position in the Jerusalem 
church and were not considered as in any degree re- 
sponsible for its government, or as clothed with any 
sort of authority over its movements. When Matthias 
was added to the eleven apostles, it was not as an office- 
bearer, but as a witness to the life of Jesus and espe- 
cially to his resurrection, and likely this was the main 
significance of the apostolate at this early period. At 
any rate, these twelve men exercised no official control 
over the Church at Jerusalem. 

Evidently Jesus foresaw that the Christian movement 
would necessarily develop into an organization. Large 
bodies of men cannot work together harmoniously or 
effectively without an organization. Specific duties 
with their responsibilities must be defined and the 
common mind must be expressed in definite rules of 
action. It must therefore have been clear to the mind 
of Jesus that the growth of Christianity would inev- 
itably result in a compactly organized body of disci- 
ples. But the thing of historic value to us in this 
study is that Jesus did not regard any special type of 
organization as fundamental in his movement. The 
individual with a teachable mind, with a hungering 
and thirsting after righteousness, and with a passion 
for humanity, was the unit with Jesus, and on such 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





rested his hope for a Christianized world. The impli- 
cations of this have far-reaching significance; and if 
they had been even partially comprehended by those 
who through the centuries have determined the 
Church’s organic form, it would have saved Christian- 
ity from much of the bigotry and superstition that at 
times have marred it, and from the petty and hurtful 
divisions that have destroyed the unity of spirit that 
characterized the Church of the apostolic period. The 
immediate result of the misinterpretation of the mind 
of Jesus in this matter was that near the end of the 
first century the erroneous idea was asserting itself 
that he had ordained a certain type of church organi- 
zation and had committed its control to a definite body 
of officials. 


PETER AS LEADER IN THE JERUSALEM CHURCH 


That Peter occupied in the Church at Jerusalem a 
position of leadership from the very beginning is quite 
evident from the record. But this seems due to these 
two considerations: (1) His peculiar natural endow- 
ment with the elements of forceful leadership. ‘This 
strong and aggressive personality asserted itself again 
and again during the years of his discipleship with 
Jesus, so that the body of disciples came to look to him 
as their spokesman and their natural leader. (2) It is 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





suggested by Paul that the first appearance of Jesus 
after his resurrection was to Peter, and that it was, 
first of all, Peter’s sturdy and emphatic declaration of 
faith that dispersed the gloom of the disciples and fixed 
the truth in their minds that Jesus was still alive. His 
testimony and enthusiasm at once placed him in the 
lead of this little band and he brought them into the 
upper room to await further divine manifestation. 
Peter was therefore naturally and not officially the 
leader among the Jerusalem Christians in the earliest 
stage of the Church development. 


JAMES THE Lorp’s BROTHER 


At a comparatively early date we find that James, 
the Lord’s brother, who did not belong to the apostolic 
group, and indeed did not become a disciple until after 
the resurrection of Jesus, was the man of chief influ- 
ence in the Jerusalem Church. Tradition, running back 
to the latter part of the second century, makes him the 
first bishop of the mother Church, appointed to this 
position by the apostles themselves. Very little weight, 
however, is to be attached to any of these early tradi- 
tions; and, as there is serious doubt whether the term 
bishop was at all used among the Jewish Christians, it 
seems altogether unhistorical to use the term in con- 
nection with James’s work in the early Church. We 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





may go further and assert that there is no trustworthy 
evidence that James ever held an official position in the 
Church at Jerusalem. Because of his genuine piety, 
his forceful personality, his superior judgment, and his 
peculiar relation to Jesus, he exerted a controlling in- 
fluence in the councils of that Church, and not because 
of official position and authority. 


THE Earty CHRISTIANS AND THE JEWISH CHURCH 


1. In the early years of the Church these Jewish 
Christians lived in a manner very similar to the easy, 
spontaneous way of life of the days of Jesus’s ministry. 
As has already been shown, there was only a dim line 
drawn between them and their Jewish neighbors. They 
still worshiped in the temple and in the synagogues, 
and there is no evidence of any thought of a separation 
between them and the Jewish Church. Indeed, it seems 
to have been the confident hope of these Jewish Chris- 
tians that their entire nation would quickly recognize 
Jesus as the Messiah and that its whole organized life 
—priesthood, sanhedrin, synagogues—would come 
under his direction and control. Not therefore until 
after the Jewish war with Rome, which forced the 
Christians permanently out of Jerusalem and into the 
midst of Gentile peoples, did they realize that Chris- 
tianity was radically different in spirit and teaching 


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from Judaism and the need of a separate organic life. 
When the Jews rebelled against Rome, it is thought to 
have been done against the advice and earnest entreaty 
of their Christian brethren, who hoped for peace in 
their beloved city under Roman rule. They therefore 
clung to Jerusalem until the last ray of hope for their 
doomed city faded and then fled for their lives. As 
a place of safety for their future residence they chose 
Pella, a little city in Perea that lay entirely outside of 
the war area and was largely inhabited by Gentiles. 
This radical change of surroundings upon the part 
of these Jewish Christians no doubt created an epoch 
in the life of Jewish Christianity. Now that the Jew- 
ish state was hopelessly destroyed, the Christians be- 
came the object of the bitterest hatred from their fel- 
low countrymen because they opposed their open re- 
bellion and did not come to their assistance in the hour 
of their great conflict. Henceforth they were looked 
upon as apostates. Thus all hope of bringing the Jew- 
ish Church into the Christian way of life was com- 
pletely destroyed, and there was created a state of mind 
that made possible a distinctive Christian organization. 


Tue NEw ORGANIZATION 


1. In the creation of a new organization their first 
step was the election of a man named Symeon as their 


1/72 





Ay HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





leader. As he was a cousin of Jesus, that relationship 
possibly was the determining consideration in placing 
him at the head of their Church. Although he is re- 
ferred to by some later writers as bishop, it is altogether 
unlikely that he was so called, since these Jewish Chris- 
tians would naturally be disposed to attach the titles of 
their former beloved Church to their new officers. 
Their entire organization must have been very simple 
and unpretentious, inasmuch as their emphasis was not 
on organization, but rather on the new life of brother- 
hood and mutual service. 

2. This complete break with Judaism upon the part 
of this company of Jewish Christians must have had 
quite a revolutionary effect upon their whole religious 
outlook. While Paul’s broader interpretations of 
Christianity had been quietly working in their minds 
and gradually expanding their views, still this final and 
sudden severance from the Church of their fathers dis- 
rupted such a fundamental relation in their lives that 
they must have experienced a special quickening of 
thought and expansion of mind. They now began to 
realize that the old Jewish system was narrow, petty, 
and altogether inadequate as an expression of the life 
of the spirit; and that it was now completely super- 
seded by that perfect revelation of grace and truth 
that came through Jesus Christ. 


173 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





Tue Group THat HELD ON TO JUDAISM 


There was a small company of these Jewish Chris- 
tians who remained unshaken in their Jewish attach- 
ments and regarded themselves the elect remnant of 
God’s ancient people; and, keeping themselves strictly 
apart from fellowship with Gentile Christians, they 
held rigidly to the old Jewish law and the customs of 
their fathers. Finally divorcing themselves from their 
Christian brethren and by their fanatical claims exciting 
the hatred of the Jews, their condition became most 
pathetic as they grew narrower in view and harder in 
spirit. They were fiercely hostile toward Paul and re- 
jected all of his Epistles and finally almost the entire 
New Testament canon. Thus refusing to take in the 
larger significance of Christianity, this group of Jew- 
ish Christians gradually deteriorated into the Ebionism 
of the second century, and finally disappeared as a re- 
ligious body. Resisting the great current of Chris- 
tian development, their speedy decay was inevitabie. 


Tue UNITY oF THE CHURCH 


1. After the council at Jerusalem concerning the 
liberty of Gentile Christians, it was mutually agreed 
that Paul and Barnabas would devote themselves to 
work among the Gentiles while the original apostles 


174 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





and their coworkers would give themselves to evangel- 
istic efforts among the Jews. This agreement was made 
in the interest of both the effectiveness of their work 
and of the unity of the Christian body. Throughout 
Paul’s entire ministry the question of the unity of 
Christ’s followers was a matter of the profoundest 
concern to him, From the very beginning of the Chris- 
tian movement the disciples had a keen sense of their 
oneness in Christ, as Jesus had himself emphasized 
it. The first disciples thought of themselves, after 
Jesus’s departure, as a family and lived together in a 
sort of family relationship. To foster this idea and 
cultivate the spirit of brotherhood that was necessary 
to this unity was one of Paul’s ruling purposes. 

As Paul conceived Christianity to be essentially a 
world religion, which must press its way to all the peo- 
ples of the earth, the value of a body cordially and 
indissolubly united at once became apparent to this 
great leader. He was therefore not content simply with 
gathering in individual converts, but was equally con- 
cerned with the development and the vitality of “the 
body of Christ.” Hence his untiring effort to main- 
tain cordial relations with the Church at Jerusalem and 
to keep alive a hearty sympathy between this Church 
and his mission Churches among the Gentiles. It was 
because this question of unity was so vitally involved 


175 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





that he was anxiously concerned about the outcome of 
the Jerusalem Council; and it no doubt had much to 
do with his zeal in making his large collections for the 
poor of the mother Church. Hence, notwithstanding 
the occasional difference of opinion on certain ques- 
tions between the Jerusalem Church and the growing 
Gentile Churches, the great principle of unity for which 
Paul contended lived on and really determined the 
course of Church history in the centuries that followed. 

The term “church” was employed to designate both 
the local organization and the universal brotherhood. 
The Church in a given community, or in a private 
home, was simply a manifestation at this particular 
place of the great body of Christ, and the fact that its 
members were widely scattered over the world and 
made up of people of different nationalities and races 
in no sense interfered with their unity—their oneness 
as a brotherhood. In the mind of Paul this unity of 
the universal Church was a matter of spirit rather than 
of organization. He organized his local congregations 
as he traveled over his wide mission field, but there was 
no effort upon his part to bring these various local 
bodies into a general organization controlled by com- 
mon officials. 

2. Paul’s local organizations were altogether ele- 
mentary and democratic. He had no fixed form of 

176 


LL  —— 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 
EEC CE EES SE ae ee 
organic life and claimed no divine authority for any 
particular features that he adopted. His organization 
developed as the needs of the situation demanded, and 
it was all practical, fluid in form, and altogether human 
in conception. 

3. During the apostolic period, and for quite a time 
afterward, the unity of the Church was a spiritual bond 
rather than a matter either of organization or of creed. 
All Christians were taught that they were members of 
the body of Christ. There was no thought of a central 
government and no law that compelled one group to 
submit to the will of another. It was solely a matter 
of the spirit. They were all under obligation to try 
to know and to do the will of Christ, but every group, 
and in fact every individual, was entirely free to 
interpret that will. 

4. With the Church covering so large a part of the 
Roman world, we may wonder that this purely spiritual 
bond kept alive such a keen sense of unity throughout 
this widely scattered membership. Perhaps the chief 
explanation is found in the fact that constant inter- 
course was kept up among these widely separated 
Christian communities. In the constant streams of 
travel along the great Roman highways were to be 
found multitudes of Christians going to and fro into 
all the provinces and cities of the Empire. As they had 

L7/, 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


a very intimate sense of brotherhood under the inspira- 
tion of this new religion, they would inevitably be led 
in the various places through which they would pass 
to seek out their fellow Christians and rest and wor- 
ship with them. We get from Paul’s Epistles a very 
graphic view of this intercommunication. The hospi- 
tality manifested and the real brotherly interest shown 
would naturally be reported back in the Churches from 
which the pilgrims came, and thus the feeling of one- 
ness would be intensified and brotherly love promoted. 

5. Furthermore, unity and a degree of uniformity 
were cultivated by the many itinerant preachers and 
teachers who traveled throughout the early Church. 
We get glimpses in the Acts of the Apostles of evangel- 
ists and missionaries busily making their way from 
place to place, and their influence in determining views 
and methods of church activity must have been very 
great. These wandering prophets and teachers looked 
to no ecclesiastical body for their authority to teach 
and had no claim on any organization for their sup- 
port. Many of them, no doubt, maintained themselves, 
as did Paul at times, by the labor of their own hands, 
but it seems to have been generally understood that 
entertainment and a measure of support would be fur- 
nished by those among whom they labored. 

6. A third means of promoting unity was through 

178 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





the sending of letters. It became a custom to send 
these missives from one Church to another, so that a 
number of Churches, in addition to the one to which 
a given letter might be sent, would get its inspiration 
and instruction. This seems to have been the course 
taken by many of our New Testament Epistles. 

7. Along with these influences, the persecution of 
the early disciples had much to do in drawing them 
into a closer brotherhood. Throughout the early period 
of Christianity the forces hostile to her teaching and 
life hung about the Church like a menacing pestilence 
and awakened within its membership such a sense of 
their immediate danger that it drew them into a grow- 
ing intimacy and an ever-deepening sense of their es- 
sential oneness. While their preaching was at this time 
limited in both its theological and ethical content, it is 
evident that their minds were gradually glimpsing the 
infinite implications of Jesus’s doctrine of God as 
Father and the correlative truth, the essential brother- 
hood of his followers. If they were to overcome the 
ugly hostility of their enemies and make the teaching 
of Jesus concerning the kingdom of God effective, they 
saw that they must be one in purpose and in heart. 

Thus the Church maintained her oneness and cordial 
fellowship until near the close of the first century, when 
a tendency developed to standardize certain views con- 


17D, 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


cerning doctrine and ritual and to exclude from the 
brotherhood those who did not accept these standards. 
This tendency appears only in its incipient stage in the 
century with which we are dealing, but there is dis- 
coverable the beginning of a movement that grew in 
its scope and in the rigor of its demands. This un- 
fortunate attitude led to a narrowing of the circle of 
the Christian brotherhood. Instead of the simple union 
determined solely by loyalty to Jesus and the spirit of 
brotherly love, uniformity of view and ecclesiastical 
technique came to be enjoined with growing emphasis, 
while narrowness and the spirit of intolerance began to 
disturb the peace of the Church and gradually to de- 
story its all-embracing unity. Instead of the World- 
Church that Jesus and Paul had in mind, this ugly at- 
titude began to produce an exclusive institution, and to 
usher in the age of Roman Catholicism, which means 
the age of sectarianism. The beauty of an all-inclusive 
brotherhood, based solely on loyalty to Jesus was 
abandoned for the sake of a deadening uniformity in 
creed and ceremonial. 


QUESTIONS 


1. What do you understand the Christian Church to be? 

2. When did the organized Church appear, and what were 
its essential features as an organization? 

3. When did the original disciples begin to regard the 


180 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





Christian movement as something different altogether from 
Judaism? 

4. Were the original disciples an organized body, or sim- 
ply a family group bound together by love and by a common 
loyalty to Jesus? 

5. What was Peter’s relation to this early brotherhood ? 

6. What was Paul’s method of work in establishing the 
Christian Church throughout the Gentile world? 

7. Did Paul’s idea of the unity of the Church center in a 
fixed form of organization? 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Ramsey, Paul the Traveler and Roman Citizen. 
Grover, The Nature and Purpose of a Christian Society. 


181 


GEA IE heat 


ELE CHURCH OLN I PROGISS 
OF DEVELOPMENT 


“WHATEVER we make of it, the Christian Church 
stands out as one of the most significant factors in 
human society for nineteen centuries. It has seen 
civilization overwhelmed and has seen it rise again, and 
has itself been the center about which it rose, Every 
phase of life is touched by some relation with the 
Church. We cannot get away from it, however much 
we may renounce it. We realize that it means more 
than we grasp—all that it means is hard to understand.” 
The beginnings and early growth of an institution that 
has weathered the storms of the centuries and so power- 
fully influenced human thought and action challenges 
the student of history. 


Tue APOSTLES 


While the life and teachings of Jesus gave birth to 
Christianity, its rapid spread in the first century and its 
organic life were due mainly to the work and influence 
of a small group of men known as apostles, and to those 


182 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





who came directly under their influence. The brave 
testimony of the apostles to the resurrection of Jesus 
and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit were 
the foundation upon which was built that religious 
superstructure that we call the Christian Church. They 
were the leaders, the teachers, the men with first-hand 
information concerning the life and gracious words of 
Jesus, the human agents that made it possible for Chris- 
tianity to win its way among peoples not at first in 
sympathy with its spirit and teachings. In the high 
respect felt for them and the moral authority of their 
teachings and judgments the apostles held a unique 
place in the Church down to the close of their lives. In 
this company were numbered not only the men known 
as the Twelve Apostles, but other men of apostolic 
spirit, such as James the brother of our Lord, and Paul. 
But only men with a divine call to leadership in the 
Church, evidenced by special endowments of the Holy 
Spirit, were numbered in the ranks of apostles. A 
man’s apostleship was providential in origin; his cre- 
dentials came from God. When missionaries were or- 
dained and sent out by Churches, as Paul and Barnabas 
from Antioch, it was not this ordination that made 
them apostles; this was simply a formal recognition 
by the Church of the evidence in the lives of the men 
that God had called them to such work. Whatever 
183 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





authority a man’s apostleship carried was due solely to 
his character and zeal and ability. Apostles did not 
consider themselves officers in a particular congrega- 
tion, or of the Church at large. They were simply men 
chosen by the Holy. Spirit to bear witness to the risen 
Christ. Of course the Churches founded by them 
would have great respect for their advice and counsels. 

The four outstanding apostles in the New Testament 
story are Peter, Paul, James, and John. Two of these 
belonged to the original Twelve. James, the brother of 
our Lord, was converted to Christ after the Resurrec- 
tion and became prominent in the Church at Jerusalem. 
The story of Paul’s conversion and work has a large 
place in the New Testament. | 

Paul’s great adventure in carrying the gospel to the 
Gentile world is historically so important, and holds 
such a large place in the New Testament, that we are 
left with limited information about other missionaries, 
who in their own way and in various fields wrought 
with a spirit not less heroic than that of the great 
apostle to the Gentiles. But the work of Paul was so 
strategic as to account for the whole historic develop- 
ment of the Church after the fall of Jerusalem (A.D. 
70); hence it is easy to see the reason why it has so 
large a place in the New Testament story. The exact 
date of Paul’s conversion cannot be fixed, but it was 


184 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





not long after the beginnings of the Christian Church. 
He appears for the first time as a great leader near the 
year A.D. 50, or about twenty years after the resurrec- 
tion of Jesus, and from that time on he was by pre- 
eminence the ‘“‘wise master builder,” under whose 
leadership in less than twenty years a series of strong 
Churches could be found reaching all the way from 
Syrian Antioch to Rome. 

Next to Paul in order of importance in the develop- 
ing apostolic Church comes John, one of the Twelve. 
There is sound historic evidence that John lived in 
Ephesus during the closing years of his life. Of his 
work as an evangelist, subsequent to the founding of 
the Church in Samaria, we have no record. Paul men- 
tions John and Peter and James as “pillars” in the 
Church at Jerusalem, although there is no evidence that 
John took part in the debate at the great Jerusalem 
Council. The most reasonable conclusion from the 
available evidence is that John, like Peter, gave his life 
mainly to the task of evangelizing his own people, the 
Jews. It is evident from John’s Gospel that he finally 
freed himself entirely from Jewish narrowness and ac- 
cepted the broader conception of Christianity so ably 
championed by the Apostle Paul. It is also a just in- 
ference from some of Paul’s epistles that John was not 
in Ephesus during the period of Paul’s active ministry, 


185 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





and that he did not arrive in that city until later than 
Paul’s martyrdom. The most plausible theory is that 
after the fall of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the 
Jews, when there was no longer work that he could do 
in Palestine, John moved to Ephesus, where many Jews 
had settled. Tradition says that he lived to a ripe old 
age, and for a number of years John must have been 
a man of outstanding influence in that group of 
Churches mentioned in Revelation, with Ephesus as 
the center of activity. That John could succeed Paul 
as the guiding spirit in that group of strong Churches 
must have been most fortunate for the Christian cause. 
The false doctrines and immoral lives of some within 
the Church, and the subtle influence of both pagan and 
Jewish teachings and habits of life, demanded the 
presence of a Christian leader who had thought deeply 
and soundly on the doctrines of Christ, and who had 
verified truth in his own experience. 

In planting the Church, Peter seems to have given 
his entire time, with one notable exception, to mission 
work among people of his own race. As early as the 
time of the Jerusalem Council, Peter was recognized 
as “the apostle of the circumcision.” Later Paul 
mentions him as leading about a wife as he 
travels from place to place in his evangelistic work. 
There were many Jews throughout Palestine and 

186 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





Syria, and it is probable that Peter selected this as 
his first field of missionary activity, and that he was 
working that field while Paul was planting Christianity 
in Europe. A man of his energy, courage, and devotion 
to Christ must have been “in labors abundant” as long 
as he enjoyed life and freedom. There is a very early 
and well-established tradition that before the end of his 
life Peter went to Rome and did evangelistic work there 
among his fellow countrymen. Some of the Christian 
fathers, writing before the close of the first century, 
leave little doubt on this point. But his going to Rome 
must have been after the martyrdom of the Apostle 
Paul, and probably after the destruction of Jerusalem; 
or at least after the disorder in Palestine due to the 
Roman invasion in A.D. 68. Since Peter was the 
apostle who had opened the gospel dispensation to Gen- 
tiles in the household of Cornelius, and had taken a 
firm stand with Paul for Christian liberty in the Coun- 
cil of Jerusalem, he would seem to have been the prov- 
idential man for holding together as Paul’s successor 
the diverse elements of the Church in cosmopolitan 
Rome. However, the vague tradition that Peter had 
an apostolate of twenty-five years in that city has no 
historic foundation and is intrinsically improbable. 
But that he suffered martyrdom in Rome, probably near 
187 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





the end of the persecution of Nero, admits of little 
doubt. 

Little is known of James, the brother of our Lord, 
beyond the fact that he became the most influential man 
in the Jerusalem Church, where at critical moments he 
turned the tide in favor of Paul’s view of Christianity 
as a religion of the spirit. Neither are there historic 
records of the other apostles of our Lord after the Day 
of Pentecost; but we may be certain that the rapid 
spread of Christianity in all directions from Jerusalem 
was due to the influence of the plain men who in preach- 
ing the gosepl could say, “We speak that we do know, 
and testify that we have seen.” 


EVANGELISTS 


In the apostolic Churches were other preachers and 
leaders known as evangelists. Perhaps none of these 
had “seen the Lord Jesus Christ” in the flesh, and so 
they could not be numbered with apostles; but they 
were men under the influence of the Holy Spirit, and in 
some cases they seem to have been quicker than the 
apostles to free themselves from Jewish exclusiveness 
and recognize Christianity as a universal religion of 
the spirit. Stephen, first Christian martyr, belonged 
to this class. 

188 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





PROPHETS 


Another class of leaders that we see in the early 
Church was known as prophets. The Old Testament 
prophets were men who saw God in all the great move- 
ments of human society and interpreted history in 
terms of divine providence. The predictive element in 
prophecy is seen in the Apocalypse, but this was not a 
chief characteristic of the prophets in the apostolic 
Churches. ‘They were not an order, like apostles, 
bishops or presbyters, and deacons, but they were men 
or women who had the prophetic gift vouchsafed to 
them.” They were the interpreters of the inexorable 
workings of the law of God. There was a sense in 
which the gift of prophecy was common to all Chris- 
tians, but the persons especially recognized as prophets 
were those who had obtained this charism in an emi- 
nent degree, and because of their unusual endowment 
were held in honor, and the Church waited for their 
guidance. Prophecy was “a spiritual gift that en- 
abled men to understand and teach the truths of Chris- 
tianity, especially as veiled in the Old Testament, and 
to exhort and warn with authority and effect greater 
than human.” Their services must have been highly 
valuable among masses of believers who were with- 
out access to the Old Testament, and who were 


189 


eenn nner rer nner reece reer rr SS SSS 
A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





incapable of thinking profoundly on the problems of 
life and the nature of the Christian revelation, and of 
thus experiencing the inner compulsion of high moral 
and spiritual demands. But the prophets, like the apos- 
tles, made no sort of claim to official authority in the 
Church. 

TEACHERS 

The early Church developed still another class of 
leaders known as teachers. They seem to have formed 
a very numerous and important group, and they shared 
honors with apostles and prophets. The function of 
the teachers was similar to that of the prophets, the 
main difference being that they dealt mainly with the 
historic facts of Christianity, the prophets with the in- 
terpretation of those facts. The teachers must first be 
students, the prophets seem to have spoken largely 
through direct or intuitive revelation. 

The four classes of leaders we have just named did 
not limit their activities to particular congregations, 
but some of them had the Church at large for their 
field. Their unusual gifts were generally recognized, 
and they were free to exercise them in any congrega- 
tion they might visit. The high esteem in which such 
persons were held naturally gave them a commanding 
influence wherever they went. Usually when one or 
more of them were present at a religious service they 


190 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





were expected to direct the service, and its meaning and 
value would be determined by the message delivered. 
They were especially looked to for guidance where 
error or fanaticism was rampant and sanity and truth 
were to be promoted. 


CuurcH DISCIPLINE 


In the whole matter of church government and dis- 
cipline, the classes just mentioned seem to have exer- 
cised a controlling influence. Their instruction related 
to conduct as directly as to belief. The people looked 
to these leaders to show them the mind of Christ for 
their daily lives, and of course they would be expected 
to reprove any who were walking disorderly, and in the 
case of scandalous conduct to lead in the exclusion of 
the offender from the Church. 


BISHOPS 


The giving of alms was an important feature of 
Christian worship and their impartial distribution came 
to be a delicate and a heavy responsibility in the early 
Church. The real condition of all the dependents in 
the community would have to be known and then a 
fair distribution of the alms collected would have to be 
regularly made. The first apostles, busy as they were 
with the work of evangelizing and teaching, soon felt 

191 





A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





that the regular distribution of the alms was distract- 
ing and burdensome, and as a means of relief seven 
suitable men were chosen to whom such work could be 
committed, and they were solemnly set apart for this 
special task. This arrangement at Jerusalem was likely 
repeated later in other communities of Christian disct- 
ples. It is thought that this evident need of financial 
oversight, rather than any other consideration, led to 
the appointment of the earliest bishops. Paul’s note of 
thanks to the Philippian Church for gifts sent to him 
affords us the first reference to bishops in the literature 
of the New Testament, and this association of them 
with the sending of the offering suggests their leading 
function. While this special financial work made the 
occasion for the creation of bishops, it is evident that 
this was not their only function. The orderly and in- 
telligent conduct of religious worship, especially of the 
eucharist to which so much importance was attached, 
must have early impressed the Church with the neces- 
sity of having a chosen group of men who would make 
this part of the work their peculiar care, and this re- 
sponsibility was added to the work of the bishops. 
We can see at once that such an arrangement would 
naturally lead to a more formal service than had existed 
up to that time. The original freedom in the early 
Church, which gave full liberty to every man to speak 
LOZ 


Le 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 
EARL ITS UE Ra ae aE RE 
or prophesy as he might feel himself moved, would be 
restricted by this method and finally suppressed; and 
the result was that the closing years of the first cen- 
tury witnessed the beginning of the stereotyped form 
of church service. 

Ecclesiastical discipline was also made to function 
through the bishops. As has already been stated, this 
duty at the outset devolved upon the apostles, prophets, 
and teachers; but in the course of time these specially 
inspired men became relatively less numerous and there 
developed a need for capable men to administer the dis- 
cipline of each Church. The bishops were the logical 
men, and the Churches began to look to them for all 
matters pertaining to church government. As this 
work heretofore had been in the hands of their most 
highly inspired men, in selecting those to whom it was 
now to be committed they naturally turned to the most 
mature and experienced men to be found, and that led 
to the selection of the oldest, at least in point of service. 
Thus the “elders” came to be regarded as a distinct 
class in New Testament times. This distinction, how- 
ever, was quite different from that which existed be- 
tween bishops and presbyters in the second century, for 
at this earlier date the elders were not officers, but sim- 
ply the more mature class in Christian service from 
which the bishops were chosen. 


193 


essence 


A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 
ES ene NESTE 

From the very first, bishops were regarded as teach- 
ers as well as administrators of charities and super- 
visors of the services. In the absence of apostles, 
prophets, and teachers all of the high duties that de- 
volved upon them fell to the bishops. These officials 
were not supposed to have the high inspiration of the 
apostles and prophets, and with the passing of the years 
and the development of set forms of doctrine and wor- 
ship their teaching came to deal more and more with 
matters of organization rather than with the mind of 
the Spirit as expressed directly through the teacher. 
Up to the end of the first century the authority of the 
bishops was very limited. The ability to rule in the 
Church was regarded as a special gift of the Spirit, and 
a man was chosen for such a task because the Church 
believed he was ordained of God for the place. If 
therefore a Church found itself in doubt as to a man’s 
call or fitness for the position, it could set aside a bishop 
and repudiate him as a leader. At that early stage of 
church development leadership did not take on a rigidly 
official character, but was determined solely by spiritual 
and mental fitness for high religious service, 

In the course of time particular congregations began 
to feel that the direction of their affairs should be en- 
tirely in the hands of their own bishops, or overseers, 
rather than left to the judgment of itinerant prophets 

194 


ty 
A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


cae ne ee CS ee 
or missionaries. This led to the claim of the exclusive 
right on the part of bishops to govern their own 
Churches, or dioceses—rights of which no authority 
could deprive them. With a growing emphasis on the 
unity of the Church, the congregation came to be con- 
sidered as but a local manifestation of the universal 
Church, and we can easily see how this idea of the in- 
alienable right of a bishop in his own diocese led toward 
the conception of the universal episcopate, with au- 
thority extending over the universal Church. 


THE BROTHERHOOD 


Thus the Church as shaped during the apostolic 
period was a world-wide fraternity of people, young 
and old, gathered from all races and conditions of life 
and held together simply by their loyalty to Jesus and 
their desire to promote his kingdom by sacrificial serv- 
ice. It was not a great piece of ecclesiastical machinery 
that was holding men fast in its mighty grip and forc- 
ing its way to influence and power; nor was it a system 
of carefully worded dogmas to which men’s minds and 
consciences must be made to submit. Rather it was a 
living historic movement whose origin and continued 
source of life and power were found in the personality 
of Jesus of Nazareth. Through him had come to them 
such a consciousness of the fatherhood of God and such 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 





a unique sense of the brotherhood of man that they 
thought of Christianity simply as a new way of life. 
It was therefore “a movement which, during the first 
century, spread throughout the world unfettered by 
creeds or rules or complex organization and, therefore, 
free to adapt itself to the varied needs of humanity. 
The bonds of union in this brotherhood were from 
within, growing out of a great common purpose and of 
a mutual love. Their tireless efforts, therefore, were 
prompted by fraternal cooperation rather than the driv- 
ing power of an organization or unbrotherly competi- 
tion. Their great objective reached far beyond all that 
is implied in man-made ecclesiasticisms and was found 
in the ideal of perfect realization of the will of God as 
that will is revealed through Jesus Christ. In the life, 
of the disciples of the first Christian century therefore 
we see the great social and spiritual ideal which Jesus 
called the kingdom of God so illustrated that it served 
as an inspiring prophecy of its future complete realiza- 
tion in the life of the race. 


QUESTIONS 


1. What were the functions and qualifications of apostles in 
the early Church? 

2. Who were the prophets in the early Christian Church, 
and what were their duties? 

3. What was the difference between teacher and prophet? 


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ee — 


4. When did bishops appear in the Church, and what were 
their special duties? 

5. Were these various classes office-bearers, or rather men 
with special gifts for high spiritual service? 

6. At the close of our first century had the Christian 
Church taken on a general organic form, or was each local 
group entirely independent? 

7. According to our New Testament sources is the Church 
a special type of organization divinely ordained, or is its 
organic form solely a matter of expediency and efficiency? 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 
(See list for Chapter X.) 


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CHAPTER XII 


DEVELOPMENT AND INFLUENCE 
OF CHRISTIAN LITERATURE 


Tue New Testament period was characterized by 
great literary activity throughout the Roman world. 
Writers of various nationalities sent out a stream of 
literature in all the varied forms through which man 
had learned to express himself. We are not, therefore, 
surprised that a life like that of Jesus and a vigorous 
movement like Christianity would incite many to take 
it “in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those 
things that were most surely believed among” the early 
disciples. 

There were two types of literature much in vogue at 
this period, the letter and the epistle. The letter was 
an easy and familiar document written to a particular 
individual, while the epistle was intended for a group 
or a number of groups and was therefore more formal 
and elaborate. Late excavations have brought to light 
many examples of both of these types of literature and 
have thus thrown much light on our New Testament 
writings. Paul made use of both these types in writing 
to his coworkers and followers and must have exer- 

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cised a very wide and effective influence by this means 
over the early Christian Church; and as these produc- 
tions of Paul’s busy life constitute the larger part of 
our New Testament they have mightily influenced 
thought and conduct through all the Christian cen- 
turies. Paul not only has the distinction of being the 
most voluminous New Testament writer, but also of 
being the author of the earliest Christian literature 
preserved to us, as the first Thessalonian Epistle is 
generally regarded as the earliest extant piece of 
Christian writing. 


First EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS 


Under persecution Paul had hurried away from 
Thessalonica, after having spent some time in that city 
preaching and teaching the new way of life. His con- 
cern for the members of that Church in the midst of 
their enemies was so keen that from Athens he sent 
Timothy back to encourage and strengthen them and 
then to bring him word as to their condition. While 
Timothy, upon his return, had many cheering things to 
relate in regard to their faithfulness and their devotion 
to Paul, he also reported that there were many evils 
in the Church, many outcroppings of their old heathen 
vices—impurity, lust, wrangling, and especially a ten- 
dency to neglect the ordinary duties of life under the 

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influence of their expectancy of the speedy return of 
Jesus. There were also some accusations among them 
against Paul himself. This report from Timothy led 
him to write this first epistle, and determined its 
contents, 


SECOND EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS 


As this first epistle failed fully to accomplish its 
purpose in correcting the growing tendency to neglect 
their ordinary avocations through their expectations of 
the sudden return of the Lord, Paul wrote his second 
brief epistle, im which he devoted his attention almost 
wholly to the suppression of this hurtful fanaticism. 


THE CORINTHIAN EPISTLES 


It seems likely that two years passed after Paul’s 
successful work at Corinth before he wrote his first 
epistle to that Church. His work there had been re- 
markably successful, and he doubtless left them with 
the feeling that they were so well indoctrinated and 
trained in Christian living that their spiritual growth 
and sound development were assured. But while he 
was in Ephesus, members from the household of Chloe 
came from Corinth and brought him very disturbing 
news of conditions in the Corinthian Church. The 
party spirit so characteristic of the Greeks had asserted 

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itself in the Church to such an extent that it was divided 
into hostile factions. The Church was also tainted 
with the social immorality so prevalent in that great 
commercial center and their Greek minds were finding 
difficulty in accepting Paul’s view of the resurrection. 
These and minor questions started a voluminous cor- 
respondence between Paul and the Corinthian Church. 
It seems that he received two letters from the Church, 
making direct inquiry about certain matters of belief 
and conduct, and later some representatives from the 
Church visited him to lay before him in detail the whole 
situation. It is evident from a direct reference in our 
first Epistle to a former “letter” that this was not the 
first document Paul sent this Church. 

This first Corinthian Epistle as it appears in the New 
Testament is the longest and one of the most charming 
of all those intimate messages that Paul sent out to his 
Churches. He takes up the various questions that had 
come to him and the ugly reports of their immoral ten- 
dencies and with great courage and beautiful tenderness 
urges on them the high ethical standards of Christianity 
which grow directly out of individual experience. 

It seems likely that our 2 Corinthians contains frag- 
ments of two other epistles written by Paul to this 
Church during this period of anxiety. Having received 
word that his former letter greatly disturbed them by 

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ee ee ee ne 
awakening their consciences, he now hastens to make 
some personal explanations and then to express his love 
for them and his deep joy at the evidence of their re- 
pentance and spiritual quickening, The epistle throbs 
with the deepest- emotion and is charged with 
inspiration. 

In the Corinthian Epistles Paul discusses questions 
growing out of economic conditions, the sex problem in 
its varied aspects, the marriage relation, and the general 
application of the law of love to all social relationships. 
These views of Paul, so nobly expressed on these vital 
questions, not only quickened and enlightened the Cor- 
inthian Church, but have also been most powerful in 
creating the standards of our present Christian 
civilization. 

GALATIAN EPISTLE 

The Epistle to the Galatians seems to have been writ- 
ten to a group of Churches established and cultivated by 
Paul in Galatia. After he had established these 
Churches and had gone into other regions, certain 
Judaizing teachers came among these Christians insist- 
ing that unless they were circumcised and carefully ob- 
served the Jewish law, Christ would profit them noth- 
ing. They then attacked Paul’s authority, insisting 
that he had never seen Christ and had no commission 
from him as had the Twelve. He was therefore, they 

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a 
insisted, teaching a false gospel. When news of this 
came to Paul and he learned that many of his converts 
were, through this false teaching, turning away from 
the grace of God, he was most profoundly stirred, and 
in this frame of mind wrote his impassioned letter to 
the Galatians. Both from the standpoint of doctrine 
and of the history of the apostolic period, it is one of 
the most important of all of his writings. 


EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS 


Paul’s Epistle to the Romans is peculiar in that it 
was written to a Church with whose planting he had 
nothing to do—a Church in fact which he had never 
visited. But he had long entertained a desire to visit 
Rome, and it was evidently a part of his program for 
the future when he wrote the epistle. From the early 
part of his ministry he seems to have had his heart set 
on evangelizing the entire Roman Empire, and hence 
his deep desire to go to this center of the nation and 
preach his gospel of the more abundant life. Up to 
this time it had been impossible for him to carry out 
this desire, and he now writes to the Church at Rome 
to present his reasons for not having visited them up to 
this time, and to prepare the way for the access of his 
gospel to their minds. And yet with this simple pur- 
pose why this elaborate doctrinal statement? If his 

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promised visit was to give him the opportunity he 
coveted, it was important that all misunderstandings 
and prejudices be removed, and that they have a correct 
view of the nature of his gospel and a sympathetic ap- 
preciation of the general soundness of his views before 
he should make his appearance among them. His long 
and intimate association with Priscilla and Aquila, 
who probably began the Christian life in Rome, enabled 
him to become thoroughly acquainted with the difficul- 
ties in the way of the approach of his message, and in 
order to make sure of the removal of all misapprehen- 
sions; and to secure for himself a sympathetic hearing, 
this elaborate theological and ethical statement was sent 
them. As this epistle is the most complete exposition 
on record of Paul’s views concerning the gospel, it is 
evident that the fears entertained with regard to his 
teaching grew out of a superficial conception of the 
scope and deep significance of Christianity. He there- 
fore attempted to prepare the way for his personal min- 
istry among them by this elaborate presentation of the 
fundamental principles underlying the religion of Jesus. 


THE EPIstTLEs oF PAUL’S IMPRISONMENT 


Paul’s long-coveted visit to Rome was finally made as 

a prisoner in the hands of Roman officers. But not- 

withstanding the fact that he was thus imprisoned, 
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ee 


bound with chains and probably facing death, in addi- 
tion to the arduous evangelistic work carried on within 
the confines of his prison, with the help of a few faith- 
ful assistants, he tirelessly gave himself to the instruc- 
tion of his widely planted Gentile Churches through 
letters and epistles. A number of our New Testament 
epistles came from his hand during this trying period 
of imprisonment. The epistles to the Ephesians and 
the Colossians, with their persuasive call to holy living 
in the name of the glorified Christ; the epistle to the 
Philippians, with its charming revelation of the deeper 
experiences of the author and of the intimacy and 
warmth of the ties that bound him and his converts 
together; the letter to Philemon about the return of 
his converted slave, “the most charming thing of the 
kind ever written,’ manifesting the most refined tact 
and delicacy of feeling in the approach to the conscience 
and heart of his friend—all of these came from Paul’s 
pen during his imprisonment in Rome. The two letters 
to Timothy and the one to Titus, with their wealth of 
instruction for meeting their appointed tasks and throb- 
bing with a deep fatherly interest in these sons in the 
gospel, cannot be definitely located as to the time and 
place of their composition, although there are some 
intimations that they were written during this 
imprisonment. 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


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Paul’s service to the cause of Christianity as a writer, 
as well as a teacher and organizer, is beyond measure. 
He found it enmeshed in Jewish narrowness and ex- 
clusiveness and, freeing it from these limitations, he 
made it luminous before the eyes of a dying world. He 
was the invincible leader in transplanting Christianity 
from the unpromising soil of Judaism into the more 
fertile field of the Gentile world. Both in his life and 
in his epistles he made the Christian life to appear as a 
directly personal, spiritual fellowship with God and as 
being essentially ethical and social in its nature. The 
implications that were in the teachings and ideals of 
Jesus concerning the kingdom of God, Paul developed 
in his epistles in a most masterful way. The external 
structure and the creeds of historic Christianity are 
largely the result of his building; but, as he always 
asserted, the foundation on which it is laid is Jesus 
Christ. 

THE Locia 


The first document containing the written Sayings 
of Jesus, of which we have any definite knowledge, is 
what is known as the Logia. The author of it is not 
known, but it is believed that it came from one of the 
early disciples. The tradition that Matthew compiled 


it is not at all certain. Mark, Matthew, and Luke may 
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have had access to it in the writing of the books that 
bear their names. 


THE GOSPEL OF MARK 


The first of the Gospels written was that of Mark. 
It was evidently the author’s aim to give us an explicit 
account of the deeds of Jesus, although we find fre- 
quent recitals of his words in making complete his pic- 
ture of the worker and ceaseless Servant of man. His 
style is easy and colloquial ; and while he gives us a bare 
outline of that busy life, it is unequaled in its vividness 
and carries all the marks of veracity. John Mark is 
quite generally regarded as the author of this book. 


THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW 


Matthew, in the composition of the Gospel that bears. 
his name, used information found in the Logia and 
manifests acquaintance with the Gospel of Mark. But 
his aim in writing was different from that of Mark, 
his chief purpose being to set forth and emphasize the 
Messiahship of Jesus. He therefore quotes at length 
both from the public and the more private utterances of 
Jesus. We know nothing for certain about either the 
place or the time of the composition of this Gospel. 

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THe GOSPEL oF LUKE 


In the writing of the third Gospel Luke, the author, 
tells us in his prologue that he used all available sources 
in securing his material. He had the real historical 
instinct and his whole purpose in compiling his in- 
formation and writing his book was to give to those to 
whom he was writing an altogether accurate history of 
the life and work of Jesus. Hence in his careful search 
for the most authentic information there is no doubt 
that he consulted both the Logia and the Gospel of 
Mark. This book is supposed to have been written a 
decade or two before the close of the first century and 
there is no reasonable ground for doubting that Luke, 
the beloved physician and companion of Paul, was its 
author. 

To these Gospels we are deeply indebted for our 
knowledge of the historic Jesus. With all of Paul’s 
splendid service to the cause of Christianity through 
his voluminous writings, we derive from him scarcely 
any information about the life and ministry of the Man 
of Galilee. It is therefore from the Gospels that we get 
our ideas of the personality and character of our Lord. 
They have kept Jesus, as a real character, fresh in the 
mind of the Church and have been channels through 
which his vitalizing power has constantly been felt in 

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the life of his followers. Moreover, they have held the 
Church to the great historic facts of its faith and have 
thus prevented its being carried away by wild specula- 
tions, “The picture of Jesus as he was in his divine 
Sonship and in his human brotherhood—a picture pre- 
served in our Gospels alone—the world could not do 
without.’’ 
THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 

The Gospel of John was written much later than 
the other Gospels. The author it seems was attempt- 
ing in this book to combat certain dangerous trends 
of thought concerning the person of Jesus. On the 
one hand was the view that Jesus was simply a supe- 
rior prophet or teacher, and on the other was the 
equally dangerous doctrine that he had no real human- 
ity. To meet these dangerous views, this Gospel de- 
clares with commanding emphasis and assurance the 
divinity of Jesus and so presents certain great events 
in his life and ministry as to make them proclaim his 
divine power. Then, the author is equally concerned 
that the human side of Jesus’s life be recognized and 
he therefore represents him as weary, hungry, and 
unutterably heavy-hearted. He will not let his read- 
ers forget, as they follow him through the pages of 
his book, that it is the Man of Galilee, the historic 
Jesus, who is the Life and the Truth and the Way. 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 

—— EE ee 

The author also felt that there was special need for 
emphasizing the exalted conception of love imbedded 
in Christianity. Hence he makes radiant Jesus’s teach- 
ing concerning the love that God has for men, and the 
self-sacrificing love men experience when they abide 
in Him. 

EPISTLES OF JOHN 

The three epistles that bear the name of John are 
characterized by a persuasive tenderness and a deep 
mystical insight into the heart of Christ’s gospel. The 
first of these epistles was written in answer to certain 
unsound teachers who were denying that Jesus was 
the Christ, and were also insisting that the Christian 
was above all law—that no sin was possible to him 
even should the whole moral law be ignored. The sec- 
ond and third of these short epistles were also de- 
signed to guard the Church against certain dangerous 
teachers who were circulating among the brethren. 


THE Book or REVELATION 


The last of the books with the name of John as the 
author is the book of Revelation. Obviously this book 
was written when the Church was passing through a 
period of great persecution as its theme is the pro- 
longed and painful struggle that Christianity was hav- 
ing with the heathenism and organized evil of its day, 

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and the joyful assurance of an ultimate and complete 
victory. The apocalyptic hopes, to which the Christians 
held as a part of their Jewish heritage, are made artic- 
ulate in this book, and bold figures of speech and a 
highly colored symbolism are used to give expressions 
to these hopes and expectations. Hence the great dif- 
ficulty the modern mind finds in attempting to under- 
stand its Revelation. 


EpIsTLES OF PETER 


Our New Testament has two epistles ascribed to the 
apostle Peter. The first of these deals with the per- 
secutions through which the Church was passing and 
exhorts those to whom it was sent to patient endurance 
and faithfulness in living that the Gentiles might, 
through “their good works which they behold, glorify 
God in the day of visitation.” 

The main purpose of the second epistle seems to be 
confirming of the Church in the faith of Jesus’ second 
coming for the purpose of “salvation and of judg- 
ment.’”’ Both of these epistles are thoroughly practical 
and must have been of immense service in the daily 
lives of those early Christians. 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 
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EPISTLE OF JAMES 


One of the most interesting and valuable of this 
group of letters is the Epistle of James. The aim of 
the epistle is clearly the correction of certain dangerous 
interpretations that were at that time finding their way 
into Christian teaching. Paul’s emphasis on faith 
had evidently been used by false teachers as ground 
for insisting that intellectual belief was the only vital 
thing and that therefore conduct was of little impor- 
tance. This epistle, in attempting to counteract that 
tendency, is devoted exclusively to works, or the daily 
conduct of the Christian in his social relationships. 


THE LETTER OF JUDE 


The letter of Jude was written later than the date 
of Paul’s epistles. The Christians to whom it was 
addressed were in great danger of being poisoned in 
their minds by false brethren, against whom he warns 
them. These false teachers were men who were living 
grossly immoral lives, were ignoring divinely consti- 
tuted authority, and were therefore creating schisms 
and seriously hurting the Church. 


EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS 


A brief study of the ‘Epistle to the Hebrews” ap- 
propriately closes this sketch of the Christian literature 
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of the first century. “In its literary form and thought 
this epistle stands in solitary grandeur among New 
Testament writings.’ It was written near the end of 
the century, but nothing at all definite can be asserted 
with regard to its authorship. Whoever may have been 
the author, he must have been a finished Greek scholar, 
a thoroughly informed theologian, and a brilliant rheto- 
rician. The purpose of the author was to strengthen 
the faith and loyalty of the Christians to whom the 
epistle was addressed in a time of great persecution 
and distress. To this end he attempts to show the su- 
preme glory of Christ’s person and work. To quicken 
their faith and inspire courage, he dwells at some length 
on the priesthood of Christ—“‘our great high priest,” 
he insists. He then reminds them that sufferings prop- 
erly met and borne deepen and enrich life’s experiences 
and that there may be produced through them “the 
peaceable fruits of righteousness.” Finally he calls 
attention to the covenant relation that exists between 
the Christian and God, and the idea of the Gospel as 
a new covenant is elaborated and emphasized. 


OTHER LITERATURE 


We have thus very briefly sketched the literature of 
this period that has passed into our New Testament. 
But this is only a part of the contribution made by the 

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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 
ee ee a 
believers of that age to Christian thought and to the 
development of the Christian Church. It is hardly 
reasonable to suppose that men who were vigorous 
thinkers and brilliant writers, like the author of He- 
brews, for instance, would stop with a single contri- 
bution to a cause for which they had such marked loy- 
alty. But the Christians of the generations following 
the apostles, in selecting the literature they felt valu- 
able for their guidance and instruction, based their 
decisions on the contents of the writings and then on 
the special claim they thought the writers might have 
to the inspiration of the Spirit. This naturally focused 
their attention on the writings of the apostles and those 
authors most intimately associated with them. Hence 
from the mass of literature that was thus produced 
they selected and preserved in the main only those 
writings that they considered apostolic, or that had 
grown out of intimate association with the apostles. 


QUESTIONS 


1. What evidence do we have that the first Christian cen- 
tury was a period of literary activity? 

2. How did the record of Jesus’ sayings and doings likely 
have its origin? 

3. About what time in his ministry did Paul begin his 
literary activities ? 

4. What evidence have we that these epistles of Paul were 


214 


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A HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES 


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widely read during this early period and were effective in 
shaping the views and life of the Church of the first century? 

5. What has been the special value to the Church of the 
Gospels, with their simple story of the life and words of 
Jesus? 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Standard Bible Dictionary. 
Fisuer, History of the Christian Church. 


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